2012 First International Workshop on Software Engineering Challenges for the Smart Grid (SE-SmartGrids)

In this paper, the OPC UA is introduced as a key technology for realizing a variety of Smart Grid use cases enabling relevant tasks of automation and control. OPC UA is the successor of the established Classic OPC specification and state of the art regarding information exchange in the industrial automation branch. One of its key improvements over the Classic OPC is that the area of application is... View full abstract»

The introduction of low-cost renewable energy production, e.g., by photovoltaic, has turned classical grid nodes like homes and offices in prosumers, taking an active role in smart energy systems by merging home-automation and energy production functionality. However, to become a self-balancing element of a stable smart grid, supporting the energy-aware cooperative production, storage, and consump... View full abstract»

Sensor and actor population within future smart distribution grids is much denser than within transmission grids. Thereby, future grid management systems have to cope with larger amounts of data than today's grid management systems. Also, future high-level applications for network management must be suited for use within automatic control loops. This results in new challenges for designing high-le... View full abstract»

Smart Grid software applications are a kind of ultra-large-scale system (ULSS) where complexity has a profound impact on their quality and defect profiles. Their complexity also adds challenges to the process of designing studies to investigate their complicated software development. In this paper we propose an empirical research agenda to study the relationship between the characteristics of Smar... View full abstract»

Smart distribution networks shall improve the efficiency and reliability of power distribution by intelligently managing the available power and requested load. Such intelligent power networks pose challenges for information and communication technology (ICT). Their design requires a holistic assessment of traditional power system topology and ICT architecture. Existing analysis approaches focus o... View full abstract»

The daily peaks and valleys in energy demand create inefficiencies and expense in the operation of the electricity grid. Valley periods force utilities to curtail renewable energy sources such as wind as their unpredictable nature makes it difficult to maintain line frequency across the network within target bounds. Peak periods require additional generators that remain dormant during other period... View full abstract»

Understanding user requirements and technological challenges for Smart Grid is important to deliver competitive and visionary products and services, and thus to shape the direction of research and development. Since Smart Grid is still in the formation stage with many stakeholders, we should quickly develop consensual and pragmatic international standards and strategies. Our goal is to assess the ... View full abstract»

As the smart grid becomes reality, software architectures for integrating legacy systems with new innovative approaches for grid management are needed. These architectures must exhibit flexibility, extensibility, interoperability and scalability. In this position paper, we describe our preliminary work to design such an architecture, known as GridOPTICS, that will enable the deployment and integra... View full abstract»

Smart grid technology is progressing worldwide. Various Countries are investing to transform their traditional power grid to Smart grid. They have started realigning their organization to support a Smart grid vision. At this initial stage some software models are required to quantifiably evaluate, monitor the progress and plan for the realization of a smart grid. At present some models like Smart ... View full abstract»

Despite the benefits offered by smart grids, energy producers, distributors and consumers are increasingly concerned about possible security and privacy threats. These threats typically manifest themselves at runtime as new usage scenarios arise and vulnerabilities are discovered. Adaptive security and privacy promise to address these threats by increasing awareness and automating prevention, dete... View full abstract»

Engineering complex systems that have to meet critical requirements is a difficult task, especially if multiple engineering disciplines are involved. Common practice in domains like the automotive or avionic industry shows that formal methods improve engineering process efficiency for embedded software due to abilities like abstraction, early verification and iterative refinement. This paper prese... View full abstract»