Smart electrical grids based on cloud, IoT, and big data technologies: state of the art

The smart electrical grid (SEG), that utilizes information for creating a widely distributed automated energy delivery network, is considered as an advanced digital 2-way power flow power system. Under different uncertainties, SEG is capable of self-healing, adaptive, resilient, and sustainable with foresight for prediction. Hence, SEG is considered as the next generation power grid. In this paper, a comprehensive survey on SEG as a new technology and operating models which will affect performance of distribution networks in the future are explored in detail. Most of the basic concepts affect such new technology like (Internet of Things (IoT), fog, cloud computing, and big data analysis) are discussed. A brief overview of IoT technologies is provided. It will explore the architectural structure of a typical IoT, cloud computing system, and different levels of the system. Furthermore, many classification methods and then electrical load forecasting (ELF) strategy that includes the preprocessing phase and the prediction phase have been discussed. Additionally, the different techniques used to manage big data generated by sensors and meters for application processing are explored. Feature selection and outlier rejection are discussed as a preprocessing process to filter the data, and then the load prediction process is explained. Finally, this paper covers the analysis of the load prediction phase in ELF strategy in which the prediction techniques will be reviewed.