Integrating Sensor Networks for Energy Monitoring with Service-Oriented Architectures

Abstract

More accurate predictions of energy consumption are a strong motivator for utility providers to deploy a smart grid infrastructure. However, measurements which only reflect the consumption of a household lose the details associated with the behaviour of individual devices. Finding a flexible and efficient way to process these readings is essential. Using standard application techniques to integrate device-oriented sensor networks and data-oriented applications is a serious challenge due to the architectural gap between the different approaches. Additionally, this device-level information should be shared with the end-users in a trusted manner to increase their energy awareness. We propose a novel platform for the smart grid which enables the seamless integration of sensor networks with a service-oriented architecture approach. The platform hides the device-specific details from the applications and transforms data into a device-independent format. Specifically, we present an in-depth description of the architecture of our platform and a full implementation and evaluation of it in a live residential energy management deployment.