Distributed Semantic Architecture for Smart Grids

The smart grid revolution demands a huge effort in redesigning and enhancing current power networks, as well as integrating emerging scenarios such as distributed generation, renewable energies or the electric vehicle. This novel situation will cause a huge flood of data that can only be handled, processed and exploited in real-time with the help of cutting-edge ICT (Information and Communication Technologies).

We present here a new architecture that, contrary to the previous centralised and static model, distributes the intelligence all over the grid by means of individual intelligent nodes controlling a number of electric assets. The nodes own a profile of the standard smart grid ontology stored in the knowledge base with the inferred information about their environment in RDF triples. Since the system does not have a central registry or a service directory, the connectivity emerges from the view of the world semantically encoded by each individual intelligent node (i.e., profile + inferred information).

We have described a use-case both with and without real-time requirements to illustrate and validate this novel approach.

Al the core of the architecture is the DDS Databus, which is uses to normalize all the information, make it available to all interesting nodes, and communicate data, events, and commmands.

Conference or Venue:
Publication Year: 
2012