Social Networking for Smart Grid Users A Preliminary Modeling and Simulation Study

Emerging smart grids have promising potentials to make energy management more efficient than currently possible in today’s power grids. Integration of small scale renewables, distributed charging of electrical vehicles and virtual power stations are some of the technological innovations made possible by smart grids. Besides these technological aspects, smart grids also have a clear social component: consumers and small producers can together form energy communities. Such communities can be based on shared geographical location. They can also form based on shared values. This paper assumes that online social networks can be used to form virtual energy communities with shared values such as sustainability and social cohesion, sharing energy. We present an exploratory study on the creation and evolution of Smart Grid Social Networks using an agent-based simulation model. Initial simulation experiments show that in this context a large community with members that are occasionally active forms a better predictor for successful energy communities than a smaller community of very active users.

[1]  Bin Chen,et al.  The Smart Grids in China—A Review , 2012 .

[2]  Jerry Banks,et al.  Principles of Simulation , 2007, Introduction to Stochastic Processes and Simulation.

[3]  L. Matthew.  Contextualizing media behavior: Media environments and individuals’ media use in the European Union , 2015 .

[4]  Mauro Reini,et al.  Optimal synthesis and operation of advanced energy supply systems for standard and domotic home , 2012 .

[5]  Jack P. C. Kleijnen,et al.  Review of the book [Design and Analysis of Simulation Experiments] , 2008 .

[6]  Jennifer L. Bevan,et al.  Disclosures about important life events on Facebook: Relationships with stress and quality of life , 2014, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[7]  Stamatis Karnouskos,et al.  A survey towards understanding residential prosumers in smart grid neighbourhoods , 2012, 2012 3rd IEEE PES Innovative Smart Grid Technologies Europe (ISGT Europe).

[8]  Lei Shen,et al.  Structural design of a universal and efficient demand-side management system for Smart Grid , 2012, 2012 Power Engineering and Automation Conference.

[9]  W. L. Kling,et al.  Social interaction interface for performance analysis of smart grids , 2011, 2011 IEEE First International Workshop on Smart Grid Modeling and Simulation (SGMS).

[10]  Ben Y. Zhao,et al.  User interactions in social networks and their implications , 2009, EuroSys '09.

[11]  Dean Leffingwell,et al.  Agile Software Requirements: Lean Requirements Practices for Teams, Programs, and the Enterprise , 2011 .

[12]  Christian Rehtanz,et al.  Smart Grids , 2019, Autom..

[13]  Michelle M L Yeo,et al.  SOCIAL MEDIA, SOCIAL LIFE — HOW TEENS VIEW THEIR DIGITAL LIVES? , 2017 .

[14]  Michele Pinelli,et al.  Optimal sizing of a multi-source energy plant for power heat and cooling generation , 2014 .

[15]  Shi Zeng,et al.  Social networking sites and political involvement , 2014 .

[16]  Maeve Duggan,et al.  Social Media Update 2016 , 2016 .

[17]  Tom Rodden,et al.  Smart grids, smart users? The role of the user in demand side management , 2014 .

[18]  Michael R. Genesereth,et al.  Software agents , 1994, CACM.

[19]  Lindsay T. Graham,et al.  A Review of Facebook Research in the Social Sciences , 2012, Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

[20]  Jack P. C. Kleijnen.  Design and Analysis of Simulation Experiments , 2007 .

[21]  Giuseppe Riva,et al.  Why Is Facebook So Successful? Psychophysiological Measures Describe a Core Flow State While Using Facebook , 2011, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[22]  Virgílio A. F. Almeida,et al.  Characterizing user behavior in online social networks , 2009, IMC '09.

[23]  G. Nigel Gilbert,et al.  Agent-Based Models , 2007 .

[24]  Paul C. Stern,et al.  Individual and household interactions with energy systems: Toward integrated understanding , 2014 .

[25]  Tharam S. Dillon,et al.  Social network of smart-metered homes and SMEs for grid-based renewable energy exchange , 2012, 2012 6th IEEE International Conference on Digital Ecosystems and Technologies (DEST).

[26]  Krishna P. Gummadi,et al.  Measurement and analysis of online social networks , 2007, IMC '07.

[27]  Daniel Worm,et al.  Modeling Interdependent Socio-technical Networks via ABM - Smart Grid Case , 2013, SIMULTECH.

[28]  Javier Ballester,et al.  Analysis and sizing of thermal energy storage in combined heating, cooling and power plants for buildings , 2013 .

[29]  Averill M. Law,et al.  Simulation Modeling and Analysis , 1982 .

[30]  Ulrich Trick,et al.  Energy communities in Smart Markets for optimisation of peer-to-peer interconnected Smart Homes , 2012, 2012 8th International Symposium on Communication Systems, Networks & Digital Signal Processing (CSNDSP).

[31]  Florian Skopik,et al.  The social smart grid: Dealing with constrained energy resources through social coordination , 2014, J. Syst. Softw..

[32]  Pericles A. Mitkas,et al.  Redefining the Market Power of Small-Scale Electricity Consumers through Consumer Social Networks , 2013, 2013 IEEE 10th International Conference on e-Business Engineering.

[33]  László Gyarmati,et al.  Measuring user behavior in online social networks , 2010, IEEE Network.

[34]  Mohamed E. El-Hawary,et al.  The Smart Grid—State-of-the-art and future trends , 2014, 2016 Eighteenth International Middle East Power Systems Conference (MEPCON).