A Smart Energy Management System for cross-sectoral coupling and water-energy nexus

abstract

Cross-sectoral coupling is one of the newly emerging research topics that refers to the idea of interconnecting and integrating the energy consuming sectors like buildings (heating and cooling), transport, water supply systems and other energy intensive process with the power-producing sector. The cross-sectoral integration of the water-energy nexus and the sustainability issues surrounding the availability of clean water and energy has drawn the attention to the problem from all around the globe. Smart decision-making and control systems can improve the efficiency of the overall operation of both water and energy systems. At a technological level, there have been attempts to optimize coupling points between the electricity and water systems to increase efficiency of both. Most of the optimization and smart decision-making systems focus on energy system and consider heterogeneous infrastructure in the form of energy consumption devices. In the scope of water-energy nexus, energy efficient decisions would have implications on water infrastructure. Tools and platforms for water-energy nexus are required, such that planning and executing the decisions and their implications on both energy and water infrastructure can be seen. Most of the existing controllers are specifically designed to efficiently serve either energy or water systems. In this paper, we propose a software architecture for the platform that is capable of monitoring, controlling, decision making and analysing the effect of decisions for water and energy nexus.