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Electric vehicles (EVs) and the recent pandemic outbreak give cities a new trend to primarily private and shared mobility with low noise and less air pollution. Crucial factors for the widespread of EVs are the electrical charging infrastructure, driving range, and the reduction of the cost of battery packets. For this reason, there is a massive effort from manufacturers, governments, and the scientific community to reduce battery costs and boost sustainable electrical production and distribution. Battery reuse is an alternative to reduce batteries’ costs and environmental impacts. Second-life batteries can be used in a wide variety of secondary applications. Second-life batteries can be connected with off-grid or on-grid photovoltaic and wind systems, vehicle charging stations, forklifts, and frequency control. The present work aims to analyze the main challenges imposed on the reuse of batteries, the leading technologies for their reuse, and the different types of batteries in terms of their feasibility for second-life use. The main novelty of this work is the discussion about the barriers, opportunities, uncertainties, and technologies for the second life market. Here we summarize the present state of the art in reusing lithium-ion batteries discussing technical and economic feasibility, environmental impacts, and perspectives. The results show five business models that have been proposed in the literature, three types of markets for trading second-life batteries, and the main opportunities and barriers for each actor in the battery supply chain.

Among different solutions to increase flexibility of electricity system, grid interactive water heaters (GIWHs) can make a large contribution, against a relatively low cost. They can advantageously be used within a single building, a local energy community or within an entire distribution grid, thanks to the very fast response time, low cost, highly distributed resource and widely demonstrated technology. In the near future, the flexibility potential of GIWHs will certainly increase, thanks to the advantageous flexibility programs that have been implementing in some area of the world, with the aim of coordinating several million of GIWHs with the electricity network. In this study, we assess the potential value that the flexibility of GIWHs can bring to the electrical power system, compared to the other sources of flexibility, focusing on the US market, specifically California, Oregon and Washington. The GIWH technology and the main GIWH control strategies are described, highlighting the flexibility behaviour of GIWHs. An overview of the GIWH pilot programs currently developed in the US market is provided, and current available technologies are shown, both for new and for retrofit GIWH installations. Most of the papers discussed in the literature focus on different aspects of demand response (DR), but very few of them focus specifically on GIWHs, and none of them offers a review of GIWHs in the US context. The present work thus constitutes a research gap, and could help stakeholders to assess the US GIWH market evolution, identifying the potential value of GIWH flexibility.

Microgrid systems that combine cooling, heating and power (CHP) with distributed cogeneration units and renewable energy sources are a practical way to meet the growing need for energy, and industrial parks have enormous potential for the development of integrated electrical and thermal systems. This paper presents a microgrid CHP model and evaluates the possibility of developing the model in the Dong Nam industrial park in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. HOMER software was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the model.

The Blorin project started at the end of 2019 to support the implementation of a blockchain platform to support the energy services provision from end users by means of Demand Response and Vehicle to Grid programs. The experimental part of the project is being carried out on two Mediterranean islands and inside the University campus in Palermo. Customized smart contracts have been designed to support the active participation of end users to regulation services for the two weak electrical grids of the islands in the view of a deep penetration of renewable energy in the two energy systems. In particular, the smart contract for remuneration accounts for the very special energy situation of islands where TSO, DSO, energy seller and aggregator collapse in a unique market actor. Moreover, in islands the electricity provision is typically still relying on diesel generators thus strongly connecting the Demand Response programs benefit to the reduction of fuel consumption, as an effect of increased efficiency of diesel generators. Due to the critical international situation and to the climate crisis, fossil fuels get more and more costly, thus a speed up of the energy transition in small islands is highly needed. This paper addresses the problem of designing a customized smart contract for remuneration of Demand Response service provision in small islands.

Transportation is one of the key sectors causing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and air pollution. With the substantial increase in passenger and freight transportation, the corresponding GHG emissions and air pollutants are expected to increase significantly. Recent global and national policies are targeting at reducing environmental impacts of transportation activities. The promotion of public transportation and development of electric buses (e-buses) will reduce the use of fossil fuels in transportation, and consequently, reduce GHG emissions. This study assesses the life cycle GHG emissions and other environmental impacts of e-bus, and compares them with those of conventional bus operated in Vietnam. The results indicate that e-bus is a preferred choice in most of studied environmental impact categories over the whole life cycle such as GHG emission, ozone depletion, ozone formation, fine particulate matter formation, acidification, etc. For GHG emissions, the adoption of electric mobility will reduce 42.62 gCO(2)eq per passenger km of carbon footprint if conventional buses are substituted by e-buses in Vietnam.

This chapter presents the outcomes of the experimental implementation of the architecture described in Chap. 4 running a hardware testbed for the emulation of domestic electrical load profiles. Besides it shows how this experimental scenario integrates both with the legacy metering architecture and with the blockchain platform. Finally, the integrated use with an Energy Management System designed on purpose is also described with the aim of ensuring intervention and automating the end user’s response to a DR event.

Sicily is one of the first Italian regions for installed power from renewable energy plants, especially photovoltaic and wind plants, and a crucial point for the Mediterranean energy hub. Its role as nexus between the European and the African Continents is becoming more and more significant due to the realization in a short time of the so called Tyrrhenian link and the High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) connection with Tunisia. In this framework, the paper presents a model of the Sicily power generation and transmission system, including the Tyrrhenian link and two equivalent buses representing the Sardinian power network and the rest of the Continental Europe (CE) synchronous area, for both steady-state and dynamic analysis. The model is developed in Neplan and it is based on the actual structure of the Sicilian power system. The rest of the CE system is represented in the model and validated by a comparison with the large-scale dynamic model of the CE provided by the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E). Finally, some simulations of the Sicilian grid in future energy scenarios are presented, and the behaviour of the system is discussed considering different transient conditions.

Le prestazioni energetiche degli edifici dipendono non solo dall’aspetto termico ma anche da fattori elettrici come: • La presenza di generatori di energia elettrica o termica da Fonti di Energia Rinnovabile (FER) e sistemi di cogenerazione (CHP); • La presenza di sistemi di controllo automatico dell’edificio (BACS) e sistemi di gestione tecnica dell’edificio (TBM). Per promuovere l’efficientamento energetico degli edifici, gli Stati membri dell’Unione Europea hanno seguito diverse strade. In particolare, negli ultimi decenni diverse politiche di incentivazione hanno attuato finanziamenti locali di generatori da FER.

In this chapter, the problem of energy management in smart grids is outlined. Optimized energy management is considered here as the operation of energy and power flow control in the aim of attaining minimum cost or minimum power losses while meeting technical constraints. Of course, according to the type of energy system in which such operation is carried out, the meaningful variables and objectives in the problem may largely change. As the extension of the system increases, the influence of the physical behaviour of the electrical power lines takes a more important role. Power electronics takes instead an increasing influence, as the dimension of the power system decreases although Kirchhoff's laws must always be verified. Energy management is also an interesting issue in multi-carrier energy hubs that implement a recent tendency in energy systems interfacing smart grids. They include different energy resources that need to be managed differently, but in an integrated fashion. This chapter offers an overview of energy management in a small system using a two-level centralized approach.

This paper provides a multi-objective optimization framework aimed at the management of a multi-carrier energy system involving both electricity and hydrogen. Using the concept of the multi-carrier hub, the proposed system has been modelled in order to define completely every energy flow inside the plant. After that, a heuristic multi-objective optimization algorithm, the Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II, has been implemented for the energy management of the plant, taking into account simultaneously three different objective functions related to economic and technical goals. This optimization process provides the set point defining the working configuration of the plant for a daylong time horizon. The communication framework between the energy management system, the real plant and the monitoring tool has been developed too, using the Open Platform Communications (OPC) protocol for the data exchange. This has been presented along with the Decision Support System (DSS) provided by the optimizer and the Human Machine Interface (HMI) of the Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) monitoring the plant. All the presented applications are going to be deployed on a real plant demonstrator.

The INGRID FP7 European co-funded project studies several methodologies concerning hydrogen production and storage, aiming to provide services to electricity system operators for suitably balancing electrical supply and demand. In such a context, the problem of integrating different carriers into a single multi-hub optimiser represents a challenging topic for the research. This paper depicts the Energy Management System (EMS) of the plant which will be developed and built as a prototype of the INGRID system. The approach followed for the EMS design and development takes the cue from the matrix model presented in the rest of the paper, as well as the general optimisation problem formulation and the algorithm selected for its solution.

La gestione intelligente dell'abitare nelle città e delle tradizionali funzioni urbane riassume il modello smart city. Attraverso un approccio integrato generato dall'uso dell'ICT e del web, che assume il ruolo di tecnologia abilitante per il cambiamento, le città contemporanee stanno prepotentemente cambiando. L'età digitale crea infatti le condizioni per l'emergere di nuovi strumenti e nuovi servizi per i cittadini, basati sulla comunicazione e sulla condivisione e le pratiche di partecipazione. Il capitolo contestualizza questi cambiamenti focalizzando su alcuni esempi su cosa può essere definito come servizi dematerializzati delle città contemporanee, visti come nuovi servizi urbani e nuove pratiche dell'abitare delle comunità nelle città intelligenti. The “intelligent management” of living in cities and of the traditional urban functions, summarizes the model of smart city. Through new integrated approaches generated from the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and of the web, which take the role of enabling technology for change, contemporary cities are strongly changing. The digital age creates, in fact, the conditions for the emergence of new tools and new services for citizens, based on communication and on sharing and participation practices. The chapter contextu- alizes these changes by focusing on some examples of what can be defined as “dematerialized services” of contemporary cities, seen as new urban services and new practices of community’s living in smart cities.

In this chapter, we try to connect the urban design features with energy consumption and consequent pollution parameters. After a review of a selected set of approaches to Urban Energy Systems study with a special focus on electrical power systems, urban energy systems are proposed as networks of multi-source hybrid energy hubs, where different energy flows are collected at the same bus and can be stored, delivered or transformed as needed. Resources at the hub and infrastructures interact with each other; therefore, both definition and boundaries of such energy systems at urban level are difficult to be clearly outlined. Similarly, the possibility to generate new operational models based on existing critical urban infrastructures is also challenging. This contribution proposes a preliminary study of urban energy hubs. Operations of thermal, electrical and mobility infrastructures are considered as qualifying features of the hub, but still the interconnected operation is not taken into account. The application part shows, indeed, the analysis and optimized design of the energy system serving two different urban districts. The related optimized parametric design of power generation infrastructures is considered as a function of urban features. The results about emissions and costs provide some interesting conclusions about the linkage between energy planning and urban features at district level, thus allowing, as possible application of this work, an energy-based territorial planning for urban contexts.

Il capitolo mostra alcuni esempi di smart cities. Nel capitolo i casi di studio sono divisi in aree geografiche, che a livello macroscopico si riferiscono a diversi tipi di città e comunità in relazione a diversi livelli di innovazione tecnologica e tipo di capitale umano, che sono fattori chiave per raggiungere uno sviluppo smart. Le città di nuova costruzione sono città appartenenti all'area asiatica pianificate da zero per limitare emissioni nocive ed alzare la qualità della vita dei cittadini. Nel paragrafo sulle città del Nord Europa e quelle del Mediterraneo sono descritte città che possiedono alte caratteristiche storiche. Talvolta queste hanno poche possibilità - per le loro caratteristiche specifiche - di avere applicate elevate misure di innovazione tecnologica, però possiedono un alto livello di sviluppo per capire e implementare i driver ICT riferiti al Concept smart city. L'ultimo paragrafo mostra alcuni esempi di città in via di sviluppo - le developing cities - che spesso sono città con un bassa preparazione ai temi inerenti la sostenibilità però con una grandissima crescita economica e sociale. This chapter shows some examples of smart cities. In the chapter, case studies have been divided into geographical categories (Middle East cities; North-European cities; Mediterranean cities and the Asian ones) which, macro- scopically, refer to three different types of city and communities especially in relation to different levels of technological innovation and type of human capital, which are key factors in the achievement of a smart development. The chapter is divided into four main paragraphs. The newly built cities, in the Middle East paragraph, are cities where everything has been planned from scratch on white paper to limit emissions and increase the quality of life of citizens. In the paragraphs about the North-European cities and the Mediterranean cities, the cities with strong historic value are described. In this section, many European cities, which have specific features like limited possibility to apply technology, but still an adequate level of development to understand and correctly implement the ICT driven choices are described with reference to the smart city concept. The last paragraph shows some example of “developing city” that often are cities with low awareness about sustainable settlement issues, but with a great economic and social growth.

Renewable electricity for off-grid areas is widely seen as one of the top choices in supporting local economic development in most countries, and so is Vietnam. Over the years, many isolated networks using renewable energy sources have been deployed for off-grid areas in Vietnam. However, the use of these energy sources in Vietnam’s isolated networks is still facing many challenges due to its infancy here. The issues of reliability and vulnerability of these networks are not given the expected attention. Another challenge is that the issues of the operational security of these systems could also be negatively affected by the variable nature of renewable sources, including static and dynamic security. For this reason, this study aims to contribute to a better understanding of integrating renewable energy into isolated networks, and in this case, using solar power for the An-Binh Island grid in Vietnam. The findings from this study suggest that choosing the right structure of the power mix could contribute to improving the operational security of isolated networks. Moreover, several solutions to enhance the reliability of this grid are also proposed. The NEPLAN environment was selected for simulation and analysis for all the scenarios in this study.

Il capitolo introduce alla tematica smart city attraverso un exscursus storico che ne traccia i passaggi salienti: la nascita delle politiche globali ambientali sino al livello della maturità raggiunto con il Protocollo di Kyoto (1997); poi ancora il Pacchetto Clima 20-20-20 redatto dalla Commissione Europea nel 2008 che traccia un'altro punto cruciale che prelude ai progetti e alle iniziative in ambito smart cities. La Strategia Energetica Europea al 2050 rappresenta il quadro di riferimento a cui tendere. Il capitolo si conclude con una rassegna dei sistemi di ranking più popolari e con una proposta di analisi. The chapter introduces to smart city issue through a historical excursus, which traces the main steps: the birth of global environmental policies up to the stage of maturity reached in Europe after the Kyoto Protocol (1997); then the Climate Package 20-20-20, edited by European Commission in 2008 marks another crucial point which preludes smart cities initiatives and projects; the 2030 Energy Strategy and finally the 2050 European Energy Strategy. The chapter is concluded with a review of the most popular smart cities ranking systems and with a proposal for a ranking based on context features.

Nell’ottica della smart city, a partire dalle nuove possibilità derivate dalle infrastrutture di comunicazione, è possibile reinventare la città ed i suoi servizi. I servizi offerti dalle infrastrutture che servono una comunità, come le reti energetiche, idriche, dei rifiuti, della mobilità e le tecnologie dell’Informazione e della Comunicazione (ICT), possono essere implementati e resi più efficienti in diversi modi. Il capitolo, dopo aver delineato i contenuti del documento ISO TC 268 / SC “Smart Community Infrastrutture” dell’ International Standardization Organization, ISO, evidenzia due diversi possibili approcci alla pianificazione delle infrastrutture mutiservizio per città esistenti e città di nuova formazione, sottolineando il valore delle “caratteristiche di contesto” nell’ambito della pianificazione delle infrastrutture urbane.

Featured Application: The potential application of the proposed model is a computationally inexpensive semi- or fully automated system for the optimization of operation in residential buildings in terms of energy consumption. Some analyses state that buildings contribute to overall energy consumption by 20–40%, which, in the context of the recent geopolitical energy crisis, makes them a critical issue to study. Finding solutions for better energy management in buildings can have a significant impact on the energy sector, thus reducing EU energy dependencies and contributing to the fulfillment of the REPowerEU goals. This paper focuses on proposing a simplified model of a residential house considering the main appliances, heating and cooling, a photovoltaic system, and electric vehicle recharging. Weather and solar irradiance forecasts are taken into account. The model predicts the energy demands of a house based on online weather forecasts and the desired indoor temperature. The article also focuses on the analysis of how weather forecast uncertainty affects energy demand prediction. This model can be used to better understand and predict the energy demand of either a single house or a set of houses. A multi-objective optimization approach that takes into account the preferences of users/inhabitants is developed to provide a compromise between the price paid for the electricity and temperature comfort. The authors plan to apply the proposed model to a residential house’s real-time control system. The model will be tuned, its predictions will be tested, and it will be used for energy demand optimization.

To date, the European regulatory framework requires the development of new energy policies at the national level that can reduce overall consumption and support the implementation of customer-focused control and management systems. Therefore, it is necessary to study the feasibility of the various strategies available, especially for the involvement of residential users in services that can contribute to the management of the electricity grid. The advent of blockchain technology has enabled the development of new business models for the electricity market, opening this world to end users who previously did not have the opportunity to participate in energy trading and allowing the implementation of services to ensure the proper operation of the power grid. Due to its characteristics, blockchain could be the solution to balancing problems caused by the penetration of unpredictable renewable sources. This paper describes a test bench for a Smart Prosumer simulation with the goal of emulating a user who is both a consumer and a producer, but also able to be smart, i.e., to optimally manage production and consumption and to communicate with a blockchain network for the provision of energy services. The document shows the different components of the test bench and how it is connected to a local blockchain implemented in the framework of the Blorin research project.

Issues related to the stability of non-interconnected grids are of high relevance given the increasing presence of renewable sources in the power generation system. In order to ensure adequate levels of system's reliability, it is necessary to find new methods to ensure the stability of the electric grid. The present work proposes a methodology for the definition of the minimum number of Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) charging points that would allow the integration of 1 MW of photovoltaic power in the power grid of the Italian island of Favignana, electrically disconnected from the continental grid. Primary frequency regulation simulations are carried out in Matlab/Simulink environment for different scenarios related to the generation park. The results show that with a limited number of V2G points levels of stability of the electrical system comparable to those before the installation of the photovoltaic plants can be ensured.

This paper describes a blockchain-based approach for sharing data among all the actors involved in Vehicle-to-Grid programs. The shared information is used both for monitoring the health status of the vehicle’s battery and for remuneration in Vehicle-to-Grid programs. A blockchain platform and a set of appropriate smart contracts have been developed for supporting the interactions among the different actors and for creating battery usage profiles. To protect sensitive data, we limit the visibility scope of such data only to subsets of actors using blockchain channels. This approach preserves the privacy of the car owner on one hand and guarantees the compliance to correct charging and discharging modes, on the other hand, by using dedicated smart contracts to manage data for each of the channels. The approach here described proposes and develops a blockchain-based ecosystem for efficiently managing electric vehicles especially when these are called to provide electrical grid services, such as it happens for Vehicle-to-Grid programs. In this case, it is indeed possible that the battery undergoes an accelerated aging and thus certified recording of charging data for legal liability is one of the issues here dealt with. When possible, data are collected from multiple sources (e.g. the charging station and the Electric Vehicle) and from different parties with conflicting interests for validating data and breaking data silos that are within the car, the charging stations and the Battery Management System.

The existing policy for greenhouse gas (GHG) abatement aims at decarbonisation of the power sector. The interrelations between the power sector and other economic sectors raise a question of whether the GHG emission reduction policy in the power sector is as effective as it is claimed. Consequential life cycle assessment (CLCA) has been developed to assess the environmental impacts of any industrial/productive sector in relation with changes in the policy and its indirect impacts on other economic sectors. This review is conducted on CLCA studies in the power sector in terms of system boundaries expansion and socio-economic interactions and the ability to quantify indirect environmental impacts. It is indicated that CLCA expanded the system boundaries by applying mutatis mutandis assumption to include several affected products with various scales of change. Economic modelling tools are frequently applied to make assumptions on the extent of change. The applications of these tools also help to identify the environmental profile of product systems and the socio-economic changes such as economic growth and consumer behaviours. Thanks for the expansion of system boundaries and inclusion of socio-economic interactions, the total environmental impacts of power sector are comprehensively quantified. The variations of the total environmental impacts, with different magnitude of change, were observed in several reviewed case studies. In term of GHG emissions, some products become cleaner, for example battery; however, in most of the cases, the power system in general becomes more polluted when indirect impacts on other economic sectors are included.

This study presents how to improve the short-term forecast of photovoltaic plant's output power by applying the Long Short-Term Memory, LSTM, neural networks for industrial-scale solar power plants in Vietnam under possible curtailment operation. Since the actual output power does not correspond to the available power, new techniques (Global Horizontal Irradiance - GHI interval division, P/GHI factor addition (P - Power)) have been designed and applied for processing errors and missing data. The prediction model (LSTM network, structure of hidden layers, number of nodes) has been developed by the authors in a previous work. In this new version of the model, the training technique is improved by using validation and experiments to determine the appropriate relevant parameters. The forecast results show that the proposed new method is more efficient than the old method, as the MAPE (Mean Absolute Percentage Error) forecast error is reduced by 6.059% and the RMSE (Root Mean Square Error) is reduced by 6.710%.

The use of technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT), data processing and blockchain have allowed companies to serve their customers with better quality, efficiency, reliability and in the shortest possible time. The growing adoption of electric vehicles on the market has increased the demand for batteries that may have numerous manufacturers. Life expectancy is affected on manufacture, but also on operational conditions. A large number of parameters have a role on battery's health and thousands of data need to be evaluated and combined. The present work investigates the scenario of the battery industry in order to implement a blockchain-based platform for the supply chain implementation thus allowing a better control on performance of batteries and environmental impact. To achieve this goal, the authors carried out a systematic review with the following steps: identification of relevant studies, evaluation and summary of similar studies, comparison and extraction of data from the papers. The main motivation of this work is the use of the literature for justifying the use of the blockchain technology to track batteries and for identifying the main challenges in the related markets that can be addressed by this technology. The results of this systematic review show that the development of a blockchain-based platform for battery tracking will allow for greater transparency across the entire supply chain: production, reuse, recycling, disposal. Trasparency and traceability prevent clandestine markets, misuse and release of pollutants. Adressing these topics forsters the successful implemention of electric vehicles in the market.