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industry 4.0 concept.
To be fair, a push to new business models is also strong
because of the threat of diminishing electricity purchase by
consumers, if in fact a vast penetration of local generation with
dispersed photovoltaic panels occurs, leading to auto-con-
sumption. We witness therefore two contradicting tendencies,
which will format the future for generation, transmission and
distribution companies: on one hand, an increase in electricity
consumption driven by EVs; on the other hand, a reduction in
electricity purchase by consumers, due to the adoption of local
PV panels and local storage, for auto-consumption.
A first conclusion is therefore legitimate: the most credi-
ble scenarios for the development of the electric energy con-
sumption landscape all point out to a net contribution of this
activity sector to the mitigation of the problems behind climate
change and to the de-carbonization of human activities.

Integrated Management – a step towards Energy 4.0

From Smart to Intelligent Grids

A first step into the vision of smart grids was materialized with
the roll-out of smart meters. More than simple tele-metering,
smart meters provided a generalized solution to have complex
operations controlled at the consumers facilities. An outstan-
ding early example could be found in the project developed
in Portugal by the Portuguese Group EDP: in 2010, the city
of Évora was totally equipped by smart meters in a new con-
cept, denoted Energy Box – actually, a dedicated computer
that could establish two-way communications with Distribution
Transformer Concentrators and through them to distribution
operators and commercializers. Therefore, not only the usual
functions of a meter are performed, but many other functions
are assured at the same time: control of PV panels, of home
appliances, of EV charging, together with dynamic tariff imple-
mentation, reliability index collection, etc.

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