IoT Assisted Power Electronics for Modern Power Systems

Abstract

The Internet of things (IoT) plays important roles in the modern digital world. It has several important roles in the modern power systems and power grids. IoT presents a lot of potential in the power systems and power grids. Some of the support functions are direct and several others are found to be indirect. Either way, IoT can play a lot of important roles in the modern power systems. It can help significantly in the measurement, control, and monitoring of the physical parameters in the power grids. It helps to in the reduction of energy consumption in the power electronic components. It has the potential to provide a lot of operational flexibilities in the power electronic components. Implementation of advanced operational algorithms using artificial intelligence and machine learning is facilitated by the IoT based sensors, actuators and other key components. It can provide smart operational assistance to the power electronic systems used in the power grids. Due to their logical flexibilities IoT sensors can be deployed alongside the power electronic components to track their performances. Consequently, using the IoT sensors’ information, the actuators are driven to deliver optimal outcome. IoT sensors’ information can be sent directly to the central servers in regular intervals to monitor the overall performances of the power electronic components. In addition to the aforesaid applications, several other potential uses of IoT in power electronics include monitoring of critical power grid parameters such as temperature, current, voltage and vibration at different key locations. In this paper, we analyze the use of IoT in power electronic components in the modern power systems.