Smart energy solutions: two-way energy information exchange between utility companies, consumers, and prosumers
Kashef, M, O, A Troisi, Visvisi
Kashef, M, O, A Troisi, Visvisi
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2023-06-01
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Abstract
Smart cities are gradually but surely developing the infrastructure and system architecture required for integrating public and private energy services. With the mounting evidence that fossil fuels are detrimental to the environment, it is imperative to integrate renewable energy sources with existing utility infrastructure. The monopoly of utility companies on energy production and distribution is being eroded due to the proliferation of renewable energy sources (RES) from private prosumers (producers/consumers). Prosumers have developed some capacity to generate a power surplus that exceeds their immediate needs. Individuals and group prosumers have created energy communities with infrastructural and technological ecosystems that allow them to generate, control, monitor, and trade power over private and public utility networks. Multi-layered wireless mesh networks (WMN) that connect multi-sensor modules (MSM) and big data analytics servers with built in AI capacity are facilitating the development of smart energy solutions. They will revolutionize the energy sector and reconfigure the process of energy production, distribution, and information sharing among individuals, communities, and existing utility companies. Considering the fact that (i) the pace of urbanization increases, (ii) energy demand in (smart) urban spaces grows, and (iii) prosumers and, so energy communities, play an ever more important role also in the (smart) city context space, the objective of this chapter is to review the existing smart energy systems and the prospect of their application in the smart city space. The notions of energy supply and demand for energy and the role of energy communities will form the thread of the discussion in this chapter.
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Routledge Handbook of Energy Communities and Smart Cities