Enabling Smart Energy as a Service via 5G Mobile Network advances (NRG-5)

Project Information

NRG-5

Grant agreement ID: 762013

DOI

10.3030/762013

Project closed

EC signature date 2 June 2017

Start date 1 June 2017

End date 30 November 2019

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies - Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

Total cost

€ 6 941 275,00

EU contribution

€ 6 833 775,00

Coordinated by

ENGINEERING - INGEGNERIA INFORMATICA SPA
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - NRG-5 (Enabling Smart Energy as a Service via 5G Mobile Network advances (NRG-5))

Reporting period: 2018-07-01 to 2019-11-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The second period has been based on the evolution of the main achievements above detailed and has been focused on the delivery of the main final results of the NRG-5 projects that we can summarize:
1. Three use cases based on VNFs and energy services developed for the smart grid domain.
2. A robust lab environment where test the VNFs and the related communication infrastructure to create a bunch of energy services to be implemented in the real pilot scenarios.
3. The creation of a resilient infrastructure both from the point of view of the communication layer and then energy domain based on different VNFs capable to add to the smart grid the self-healing functionalities but also an enabler of a resilient and high-performance infrastructure to provide users and field devices with a wireless connection. To support the stable storage and management of the persona user data in a secure and privacy-preserving way thanks to the creation of a virtual twin modelling the smart grid devices like the 5G-Norm.
4. The software and applications designed and developed in WP1 and WP2 have been exploited in WP3 that has been involved in the creation of the different analytics application components to guarantee the energy monitoring, the dispatchable demand response and the predictive maintenance for keeping the smart grid secure, stable and resilient.
5. Once the communication infrastructure and the software have been created the further step was to test in both lab environment and in the real pilot site the 3 NRG-5 UC. The main results obtained after a few rounds of validation tests can be summarized as a different number of VNFs and energy services to be deployed in a flexible way, thanks to the OSM integration and open stack infrastructure to assure the availability, reliability and security of the 5G energy services.
6. The overall group of results have been then used to support the creation of two important white paper related to the WGs of software network and architecture. With this purpose, many phone calls and real meetings has been used to align the project outcome to the activities related to standardization operated in 5G-PPP providing a strong base for the future development of a smart grid energy slices based on cloud-native approach and easy re-instantiable energy functions.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

NRG-5 successfully completed the laboratory, real-life trial integration and evaluation and validation processes based on three use cases for the energy domain based on the 5G-enabled next-generation smart metering device (5G-NORM).
In the final period, NRG-5 was mainly concentrated on two forefront actions: a) The final development and validation phase for all the project VNFs and the related services built and integrated on top of them b) The dissemination and the increasing of societal impact of NRG-5 results via the participation on the overall consortium in EUCNC 2019 and two open days that collected many stakeholders participation from communication and energy domains.

Two kinds of VNFs was developed and tested both in lab and in real environment. The first set comprised the general-purpose VNFs embedding the following functionalities: i) terminal service discovery and supporting mesh networks with arbitrary protocols for physical, MAC, network and transport layers (vTSD), ii) increasing resilience and speeding up computation at the edge via adaptable data caches (vMCM), iii) better handling mobility based on GPS coordinates and NRG-5 presence in an area (vMME), and iv) hardening security for particular communication and data reporting paradigms that are considered critical for the energy domain with a strong focus on blockchains (vAAA and vBCP).
The second set comprised utility centred VNFs as: (vESR) to calculate and optimize set point in the micro-grid, energy storage systems (vDES) to handle 2nd life batteries and EV charging station, (vRES) for the renewable energy sources management, (vPMU) phasor measurement units and the drone VNFs for automated video analysis (vMPA), automated drones control (vDFC) for overviewing power lines status.
All these VNFs have been used as software modules and units for the different services provided by NRG-5 finally demonstrated and integrated into the real environment: Advanced Metering Infrastructures as a Service (AMIaaS), Preventive Maintenance as a Service (PMaaS) and Dispatchable Demand Response as a Service (DDRaaS), corresponding to UC1-UC3. These 3 extremely demanding 5G Smart Energy vertical use cases were developed to satisfy requirements as Massive MTC (UC1 and UC2), Enhanced Mobile Broadband (UC2), Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communication (UC3). They were handled introducing an NRG-5 extended Mobile Edge Cloud (xMEC) node aligned to the overall 5G-PPP 5G reference architecture.
From a platform perspective, NRG-5 provided a MAPE-K control loop for optimizing the use of resources at the xMEC level and for deciding over optimal deployment options. Depth analysis of energy-related Critical Infrastructures SLAs was also performed. From an SDN standpoint, NRG-5 used successfully OpenStack as a virtualization platform managed by the ETSI OSM MANO framework handling the complete integration of the two platforms.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

We provided for the energy domain different solutions with positive impacts on the energy technology industry capable to be the enabler for the enhancement of their products. Thus, we demonstrated that the new functionalities expressed by 5G VNFs can speed up the joint merge between energy and communications infrastructure.

Many impacts have been predicted for NRG-5 final outcomes:
-With the Dispatachable Demand Response, we demonstrated that the resource renewables penetration can be increased at rates the follow the IoT devices proliferation.
-We demonstrated a smooth integration of EV mobility in the smart grid, capable to speed up the transitions to a more green and stable smart grid in which the electrical vehicle can play the role of stabilizers for technical operations. Moreover, we provided the virtual PMU with comparable performances than the real field device but with the advantages and flexibilities of a software artefact. Finally, we demonstrated as the functionalities of the drone can be handled in predictive maintenance modality in edge cloud.
-These main achievements increase the quality of the energy provided to the EU cities also making the energy infrastructures more resilient and much safer.
Moreover, we have implemented a well-demonstrated platform for the integration of IoT technologies in the 5G layer. In fact with the novel NRG-5 VNF stack we demonstrated that the connectivity of the devices can be more resilient, persistent, and secure whereas data from IoT devices are securely and controllably available to location-aware applications.
Our dissemination activities with many interested stakeholders demonstrated the EU economy will benefit through the active engagement of SMEs and Industries that will increase their competitiveness in the 5G and energy (possibly local) market economy. This finally will allow for stronger standardization impact, also boosting the integration of energy markets across Europe. We foresee that the European society will benefit from the combination of 5G communications and smart energy and from the boost of Renewable Energy Source penetration with a direct positive impact on the environment.

xMEC design

Project logo