Smart grids and the Internet of Things: Open Energi looks to spark a new energy market

computing.co.uk

Smart grids are one of the most promising applications of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, offering many potential benefits for tomorrow's energy supplies. Because power stations and consumers are already connected via a grid, adding intelligence to that network using sensor data and analytics can match supply with demand in a way that should increase efficiency, reduce emissions and help to mitigate many of the problems of intermittent supply inherent in renewables such as solar and wind.

"The UK's smart energy grid is still in its infancy but I think we are on the brink of a very exciting period, which will see a transformation in how our energy system operates," says David Hill, business development director at Open Energi, a UK technology company that retrofits energy-intensive utilities such as fridges, air conditioning units and pumps turning them into "smart devices" that can alter their energy use intelligently in response to fluctuations in electricity supply.

Open Energi is working with hospitals, universities, airports, supermarkets (including Sainsbury's), government departments (Defra), water companies, metal foundries, aggregate companies, food distributors and others who are contributing to what the firm calls a "virtual power station"."The number of connected devices is set to soar over the next 10 to 15 years and this is creating a whole new value chain where energy users are empowered to take control of their demand and become active participants in the market, both taking and giving a service to the grid," says Hill.

Its Dynamic Demand technology aggregates energy consumption from across its customers' sites, increasing demand when there is too much supply and decreasing demand when there is too little supply from the National Grid. Combined with local power generation and on-site storage this system enables companies to pump energy back into the National Grid at times of low demand, just as domestic solar panels do, creating a new energy market.

It may be in its infancy but the system is already up and running, says Hill, giving the example of United Utilities, which first started trialling the company's technology last year at three wastewater treatment plants in Lancashire.

"The company is now rolling out the programme across the whole north west region," he adds.

"By 2020, United Utilities expects to have around 50MW of flexible capacity to offer up to National Grid - the equivalent of a conventional peaking power station. This will reduce carbon emissions by around 100,000 tonnes per year and should generate income of around £5m, which will be reinvested into site assets to reduce operating costs."

Hill suggests that this type of technology could allow substantial efficiencies to be made.

"Our modelling suggests around 10 per cent of all UK demand can be quickly and predictably shifted without affecting business processes," he says. "This would enable us to flatten peaks in demand and maximise the use of existing infrastructure, creating efficiency gains that would deliver huge savings to consumers."

Real-time response
Making "dumb" devices "smart" and hooking them up to some sort of automated control system is what the IoT is all about. Data streams from the sensors are stored, analysed and acted upon in real-time, with historic time series data used to build consumption models. Open Energi has deployed Hadoop for this task, in partnership with Hortonworks.

"Initially we are making use of HDFS and HBase to store our time series data, querying via Hive and using Storm for real-time analytics," says Hill.

"Hortonworks have provided us with excellent support both in the initial phases of deploying a Hadoop cluster, and also in choosing the right components and architecture for our particular needs.  They also help us with the learning curve involved in making best use of Hadoop."

Hill concedes that a sticking point with the IoT in general is its immaturity.
"Security is a major issue for smart energy systems as it is for all IoT enabled solutions and there is no silver bullet," he said.

"Tackling these challenges is going to require collaboration across industries and requires a focus on security from day one so that systems are designed and built to maximise security safeguards and continually developed to ensure their resilience in the face of ever changing threats."