Big Data, Blockchain and IoT in Energy Management for Sustainable Development

Dear Colleagues,

The advancement of ICT technologies has led to new opportunities for retailers, consumers, prosumers, and owners of distributed energy sources, including storage facilities and grid operators.

The future electricity grids consist in heterogeneous systems with an increasing number of small-scale generators and smart appliances, providing a large amount of data. Hence, the energy sector necessitates big data solutions and architectures for performant energy system management. These solutions are particularly important in the current context of European and national regulations regarding large scale implementation of smart metering systems, reduction of carbon footprint, improvement of energy efficiency, increasing the involvement of the consumers, and new potential of the local electricity trading.

Blockchain technology and the Internet of Things (IoT) enhance trading the surplus of the electricity generated by communities or microgrids. A smart adaptive big data framework for demand side management fostering market strategies, settlement, and grid-efficient operation essentially necessitates big data solutions to extract, process, and analyze a large volume of data generated by consumers/prosumers from various sources: smart appliances (IoT and sensors), small-scale generation, such as photovoltaic panels and micro-wind turbines, integrated with storage devices and electric vehicles.

Consumers’ behavior is changing to a more active role empowered by recent advancements in ICT technologies. Thus, the operation of the smart appliances can be monitored, optimized, and controlled with smart home applications, sensors, and IoT architectures.

Prof. Adela Bara
Dr. Simona-Vasilica Oprea
Guest Editors

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