IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - March 2022 - 28

to distributed control, which increases system complexity
significantly, real-time communication problems and
the whole system synchronization issues.
Communication and Cybersecurity
Issues in TE Systems
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) plays an
essential role in TE, making the communication network as
important as energy grids to enable implementation of P2P
and energy transactions. The electronic devices (USM,
HEMS) and power electronic systems (ER, ST, RES, ES)
should use communication facilities to send their state variables
and to receive operation references. The use of communication
facilities is not new in power systems. Commonly,
proprietary communication networks and protocols
were used, but now public networks or connections are used
in the TE paradigm, where consensus protocol requirements
are key issues to be considered (safety, liveness and fault tolerance)
[32]. Particularly, the use of Internet has given rise to
the new concept of Internet of Energy (IoE) [33].
The communication paradigm introduced by TE has
raised new concerns in power systems related to security
and privacy of typical power and industrial electronic
devices and communication protocols, thus requiring new
frameworks and standards [34]. Nowadays, it is required
that electronic and electric engineers understand at least
the basics of security/privacy frameworks and protection
mechanisms to prevent, detect and cancel attacks. Figure
6(a) describes graphically potential vulnerabilities
in smart power systems and most common attack types
[35]. To assure security and prevent attacks that exploit
multiple vulnerabilities in Smart Grids, a proper layering
model must be established in the TE architecture and a
cybersecurity life cycle model must be applied (as presented
in Figure 6(b) [36]) when establishing the procedures
for design, development and validation of the TE
power electronic systems and electronic devices.
TN security features have to be established according
to the nature and function of each node (TTN, TEN,
STN, EUTN) and to the information they collect, contain,
or transmit (as electric magnitudes, end-user identification,
operation references or billing information). These
measures must be designed to protect from unauthorized
access, destruction, use, modification, or disclosure. To
increase robustness against attacks, encryption is regarded
as one of the main and basic actions. It should be implemented
in several computing layers, considering that TNs
are split into several independent domains or virtual local
area networks (VLAN) defined at house, building, neighborhood
or ST levels.
When planning the TE system, two possibilities can be
considered [37] to use a centralized (where the communication
between prosumers should be authorized by centralized
servers) or decentralized architectures. Centralized
servers represent single points of failure and may represent
easy targets for attacks from hackers. P2P decentralized
28 IEEE POWER ELECTRONICS MAGAZINE z March 2022
architectures present advantages as scalability, resiliency,
adaptability, fault tolerance, security, trust, and lower investment
and maintenance costs. Introducing blockchain in
decentralized architectures as a communication framework
in TE offers such advantages in terms of security and privacy
[38] as: trusted network over untrusted participants without
relying on a trusted third party (TTP) using distributed consensus
algorithm; sealed transactions using asymmetric
encryption that contain the hash of the transaction, ensuring
data confidentiality and integrity; anonymity as users are
known by a changeable Public Key (PK); and auditability of
transactions that are permanently stored in the public ledger.
Applications and Future Trends
TE has been reported in several publications; however, the
researchers are mostly motivated by the development of theoretical
models and formulations. Few studies address real
and concrete implementation aspects of the necessary technological
approach. Nevertheless, several pioneering projects
addressing the TE concept in the real world are emerging
(a comprehensive list can be found in [37] and [38]).
Energy Routers and Smart Transformers have already demonstrated
some of their capabilities in several utility projects,
but it is required to ensure their wider adoption in true TE
systems. One of the most known and implemented projects
is the Brooklyn microgrid from Lo3Energy9, but this is a P2P
TE microgrid using the blockchain without a true energy
routing procedure. Several other projects use the TE concept
to control local home devices or loads (mainly HVAC or
other thermostatic controllable loads), but still not providing
any energy routing. As stated before, the ER concept has
already been deployed and validated in several real-life projects.
It has gone beyond the pure conceptual research framework
[16], [39], but it still needs to be fully integrated with
TES. Some companies, such as VPEC10, are already providing
commercial versions of the energy router concept.
Although, the structure of ST is much more complex, due to
fault-tolerant operation capability in comparison to a conventional
transformer, it may add a completely new set of
functionalities that are not yet available, for instance:
■ the presence of the dc-link allows one to direct the connection
of the dc grid and additional energy storage,
which eliminates additional dc/ac power converters and
improves the overall efficiency of SG;
■ proper operation at voltage unbalance, voltage dips and
other voltage disturbances that will not be transferred
from one side of the transformer to the other;
■ increased efficiency of SG due to dynamically controlled
power distribution, fully controlled amount and direction
of the energy flow and reduced energy losses during
transmission;
■ reactive power and higher-harmonics compensation independent
of both sides of the transformer;
9 https://lo3energy.com/
10 http://www.vpec.co.jp/eco+_e.html
https://www.lo3energy.com/ http://www.vpec.co.jp/eco+_e.html
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