Industry 4.0 and the smart grid

 Smart Cities provides a platform for the efficient use of resources available in a particular area. It is going to be the future proof ability of the cities’ resource/energy/digital requirements and country’s approach towards adoption of renewable solutions. The proper utilisation of which would affect the efficiency, safety and sustainability, growth and economy of a particular region. The three most important stakeholders in the whole setup include consumers, utility distributors, and industry partners. The blockchain, therefore, helps of being a platform on which the mass of new data derived from the elements of smart cities can be safely stored and accessed. It also serves as an interoperable platform that gives residents of intelligent cities greater say in the decisions affecting their hyperlocal communities, starting from budgeting to elections. With the rapid growth of urbanisation, smart-city needs the adoption of efficient and sustainable intelligent solutions in the areas of transportation, environment, energy, government affairs. Therefore, the urban lifestyle is not only the main engine of the global economy but is also is the planet’s most significant source of sustainability. For a smart city to be smart, the industries adaptive blockchain solution implementation is the key to the future. The ability of Smart Cities at transforming data to inform decisions is the foundation for the future’s sustainability

Utilities generate lots and lots of data. Utilities have direct contact with the customer, which is essential and demands good service. Generally, it is devoid from any options and cannot be stayed without usage. The only choices that make it a viable and marketable product is to collaborate with technology. By applying blockchain to their vast stores of data, utilities can unlock new revenue streams from better-coordinated markets. Utilities distributors/sectors that participate in collaborative blockchain solutions and understand the risks and opportunities of the technology will be better placed in the market. This further enables the business to make the paradigm shift towards customers, who has the final decisions to make. This promulgates enterprises to focus on their customers with modern usage and innovative solutions. 

 Information technology (IT) makes the smart grid possible. It is also a significant driver of energy efficiency. As utilities work toward building smart grids with IT, they are turning to smart meters and advanced metering infrastructure as a critical first step in adding intelligence to energy networks.

Smart metering technology has proven to be effective and reliable at managing electricity consumption. In addition to its measuring usage, smart meters record a variety of data points on consumption, including when a resource is being used, how much is being used at a time and where it's being directed. Through the internet or wireless connection, the data is relayed to a console, where the breakdown of data can be viewed.

Many electric, gas, water and other utility companies have embraced smart metering as an efficient method of tracking usage across their customer bases to determine costs and infrastructure needs better. Smart metering can give both utilities and their customers better ideas of how usage affects their costs and help them choose new strategies to save money. The internet of things (IoT) field has taken advantage of smart metering to expand on a network of interconnected devices producing a massive amount of data.

Because smart metering is a newer way to track energy usage, in many markets, it's an optional installation for businesses from their utility providers. Although utilities may charge for the building, the extra cost may be worth it for businesses because it allows them to adjust their usage to save on energy costs. The key to the success of these technologies is the communication that they offer (such as cloud-based grid management software), not only to electricity consumers but also to the utility. 

Smart meters are genuinely a modern solution which can unlock a slew of capabilities for the utility sector in terms of billing efficiency, remote billing, automatic outage reporting, flexibility with time-of-use tariffs, and new revenue streams. Smart devices and gateways connect over wireless technologies, with data often accessible through any web browser or mobile device. The added IoT network makes it easy to access remote monitoring, maintenance, and engineering consultation services. The extensible systems, therefore, allow the integration of all the respective distributed energy resources available at the grid, along with the emerging technologies. 

The prevalence of autonomous vehicles is reliant on the development of other supporting technologies, and that’s everything from an advanced battery technology, electrification through wireless charging and dynamic grid systems and the 5G network to run their connectivity.

The electric vehicle charging station is equipment that connects an electric vehicle (EV) to a source of electricity to recharge electric cars and plug-in hybrids. Some charging stations have advanced features such as smart metering, cellular capability and network connectivity, while others are more basic. The Smart Grid, on the other hand, will consist of the infrastructure needed to enable the efficient use of this new generation of Plug-in Electric Vehicles (PEV)

The future of e-mobility is not about ownership, but it is about managing infrastructure. At this present point of time, in the expanding era of e-mobility, a supporting platform is an immediate requirement to the scare and inefficient public charging infrastructure. Collaborative solutions need to be found by joined-up thinking among diverse innovators working together digitally to drive interoperability. Blockchain could be thus enabled in the above-mentioned infrastructure through a simple cycle consisting of Exploration, Bidding, Evaluation, and Charging.

Electric mobility is a vital part of future transportation, and thus blockchain-enabled based solutions like these would undoubtedly accelerate a low-carbon, customer-centric electricity future. In the times ahead customers would indeed invest more in the grid than the utilities for a safe and sustainable future of zero emissions, zero accidents and zero ownership. 

India is gradually transitioning from fossil fuels to renewables. This ongoing revolution is creating demand for new storage technologies and options to integrate clean energy into the power system. These technologies will allow for a more reliable and flexible operation of the electricity distribution and transmission grids, enhancing electric power quality and making renewable energy user friendly. 

In the years ahead, renewables will assume a larger role as the main power source for electric grids. Mainly because of the rapid development of emerging information and communication technologies (ICT) such as AI, cloud computing, big data, and 5G. They are adding to that the expected adoption of electric vehicles(EV) has also opened the way for the vehicle to grid (V2G) technology deployment, which involves the management and control of electric vehicle loads via the local grid distributors of the energy utility. 

The emerging technologies are converging to create a world in which everything is becoming sensed, connected, and intelligent at a speed that is faster and subsequently the energy resources have the potential to be distributed locally and also exported to other countries. Renewable energy has a game-changing effect in accelerating the clean energy transition in the power sector.

Renewable hybrids are one of the best solutions for many issues. The hybrid system can combine wind, solar with an additional resource of generation or storage. The overall output of the hybrid system can thus be matched against a required load on an hourly basis. In this way, it can provide both baseload and flexible power. Hybrid systems are expected to become increasingly cost-competitive, driven by reducing costs of battery storage and solar energy.