José Antonio Rodríguez-Mondéjar

Current solutions to the interoperability problem in Home Automation systems are based on a priori agreements where protocols are standardized and later integrated through specific gateways. In this regards, spontaneous interoperability, or the ability to integrate new devices into the system with minimum planning in advance, is still considered a major challenge that requires new models of connectivity. In this paper we present an ontology-driven communication architecture whose main contribution is that it facilitates spontaneous interoperability at system model level by means of semantic integration. The architecture has been validated through a prototype and the main challenges for achieving complete spontaneous interoperability are also evaluated.

One of the main interoperability issues in electric power systems concerns the interactions between IEC 61850 and CIM standards. The state of the art includes solutions to facilitate the exchange of configuration files between the two standards. Nevertheless, there are no contributions in the literature aimed at facilitating the run-time interactions between IEC 61850-based and CIM-based systems. Thus, at present, the signal mapping between these systems must be carried out manually. This paper presents a new methodology that helps to automate this process by utilizing ontology matching techniques. The proposed methodology was successfully evaluated with case studies based on four representative substation architectures.

The ADDRESS European Project (Active Distribution networks with full integration of Demand and distributed energy RESourceS) aims to provide a comprehensive commercial and technical framework for the development of “Active Demand” in the smart grids of the future. In ADDRESS, “Active Demand” (AD) means the active participation of domestic consumers (and other consumers with similar energy profiles) in the electricity market. One of the key elements for converting passive consumers into “Active Demand” consumers is the ADDRESS Energy Box (EB): a smart energy management box installed in the home. The EB manages the main home loads, such as the air conditioner or other appliances, based on the optimal combination of user preferences and reward-based requests to modify energy consumption. This paper gives an overview of the design and implementation of the ADDRESS Energy Box, which is going to be installed in 300 Spanish homes and 100 French homes.

The CIM (IEC 61968/IEC 61970) and the IEC 61850 are the two main families of standards that promote the interoperability in the electric system domain. The IEC is working on the modifications to be performed in such standards to solve the existing mismatches between them. However, until these modifications have been standardized, interactions between systems using the current versions of the standards will still be required. Interactions between heterogeneous models are usually expensive and time-consuming processes. For that reason, a new methodology based on Semantic Web open-source resources is proposed in this paper to facilitate such interactions. The methodology is implemented through a data translator that imports its knowledge from files described in well-known languages, facilitating its adoption to other heterogeneous models. The tests performed have proved the ability of the data translator to make bi-directional translations between the standards and to recover the lost information during the translations.

During the planning and configuration of future energy smart grids translations of configuration files between CIM and IEC 61850 standards are going to be required. In order to carry out such translations it is necessary to align the CIM and SCL ontologies, which define the semantics of the configuration files. This work presents a methodology to automatically obtain the alignments between such ontologies. The methodology is based on the interaction between two existing tools: CIMMappingBench and ESODAT. This interaction requires the participation of the Domain Expert, which is a software tool developed in this work. The Domain Expert is able to employ specific knowledge about the electric system domain in order to find new alignments. The tests carried out showed the ability of the methodology to find most of the alignments required to translate a configuration file representing a simple facility.

The harmonization of CIM (IEC 61968/61970) and IEC 61850 standards is a major issue in the interoperability between smart grid devices, systems and applications. This paper describes how Ontology Matching methods, mainly developed for the Semantic Web, can be employed to solve the problems or mismatches that appear in this harmonization. The paper also includes a description of the ESODAT software tool, which processes OWL alignments to translate configuration files from one of the standards (CIM or IEC 61850) to the other one. The tests carried out with this tool proved its ability to solve mismatches that appear in the state of the art. Besides, the solution proposed in this work is based on open source resources and does not require any modification of the original standards.