Big data framework for analytics in smart grids

Smart meters are being deployed replacing conventional meters worldwide and to enable automated collection of energy consumption data. However, the massive amounts of data evolving from smart grid meters used for monitoring and control purposes need to be sufficiently managed to increase the efficiency, reliability and sustainability of the smart grid. Interestingly, the nature of smart grids can be considered as a big data challenge that requires advanced informatics techniques and cyber-infrastructure to deal with huge amounts of data and their analytics. For that, this unprecedented smart grid data require an effective platform that takes the smart grid a step forward in the big data era. This paper presents a framework that can be a start for innovative research and take smart grids a step forward. An implementation of the framework on a secure cloud-based platform is presented. Furthermore, the framework has been applied on two scenarios to visualize the energy, for a single-house and a smart grid that contains over 6000 smart meters. The application of the two scenarios to visualize the grid status and enable dynamic demand response, suggests that the framework is feasible in performing further smart grid data analytics.