Smart Energy Is the Key for Sustainability [Notes from the Editor]

Abstract

e can observe that the word smart is used in multiple contexts, from granularity to devices, systems, and bigger physical entities. Examples include the smartphone, smart car, smart health care, and smart city. Thus, a question arises: What is smart? Does smart mean compact? Does it imply being efficient? Does it mean fast? Is smart synonymous with intelligent? Is it used in different ways? In the summer of 2018, I served on the panel “What Makes Smart Cities Smart?” at the third Zooming Innovation in Consumer Electronics International Conference, held in Novi Sad, Serbia. As far as I remember, I defined smart as the ability to gather information from data and signals and then act based on that information. Since then, I have been thinking further about this topic. I delivered a keynote in December 2018 at the fourth IEEE International Symposium on Smart Electronic Systems in Hyderabad, India. Based on the ongoing trends of electronics, I envision that smart electronic systems—also known as smart electronics or smart consumer electronics (CE)—can be energy smart, security smart, and response smart. Energy smart means that the energy consumption of electronics is optimal for longer battery life and smaller energy bills. Security smart ensures the security, privacy, or protection of electronic systems as well as that of the data or media that these systems capture, process, or store. Response smart in cludes accurate sensing, intelligent processing to retrieve knowledge or information from the data, and accurate actuation or response based on the information. There is a need for new hardware, firmware, middleware, and software research that interact with each other for efficient realization of smart electronic systems. This issue of IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine is dedicated to smart energy. In the July 2016 issue, we defined smart city as “a city connecting the physical infrastructure, the information-technology infrastructure, the social infrastructure, and the business infrastructure to leverage the collective intelligence of the city” to en hance livability, workability, and sustainability. A smart city is a very large abstraction made of smart components using smart technologies. Smart components are cyberphysical systems, which are physical systems made smart by using the Internet of Things (IoT) and big data analytics through artificial intelligence. At a higher level of granularity, smart energy, smart health care, smart transportation, and smart infrastructure are considered various components of smart cities. In this issue dedicated to smart energy (the Internet of Energy), we ask: What is smart energy? It is high-quality, sustainable, and uninterrupted energy with a minimal carbon footprint. However, it has different components at the next detailed level of granularity, including smart generation, smart grid, smart storage, and smart consumptions. Smart generation may involve generation from sources both conventional (fossil) and renewable (solar and air) and even from mixed-energy forms, smartly generating from multiple sources as per the energy demand. The smart grid deals with the transmission and distribution of energy in an efficient and resilient fashion from generation to destinations (i.e., to the consumers). Smart storage may entail storing energy in various possible forms, such as conventional batteries, smart batteries, and more. Smart consumption is also important for smart energy. It may be noted that it is consumption—that is, the consumers’ demand for energy—that triggers generation. Smart energy consumption at home—using individual CE, such as smartphones and home appliances—and with industrial infrastructures can be effective. The IoT plays an important role in smart energy, including for the following: 1) management of energy usage, 2) power generation dispatch for solar, wind, and so on, 3) better fault-tolerance of the grid, 4) better load forecasting, 5) services for plug-in electric vehicles, and 6) enhanced consumer relationships.