Article Information
Publication date (electronic): 30 June 2015
DOI: 10.emerg/10.17357.4055a16bb3f90b8a02b47eee20682bbc
Utility-service provision as an example of a complex system
Bio:
Anna Strzelecka received her master's degree in Applied Mathematics from Lodz University of Technology in Poland in 2009 and her bachelor degree in Chemical and Process Engineering from the same university in 2011. In 2011 she started her PhD research titled "One Utility for Sustainable Communities: Modelling and Optimization of Utility-Service Provision" in the Water Software Systems group at De Montfort University in the United Kingdom. She was also involved in "All-in-One: Feasibility Analysis of Supplying All Services through One Utility Product" project that was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). The project explored the possibility of delivering all household utility services via a single utility product or infrastructure 100 years in the future. She is now working on an EU-funded project titled "BlueSCities"–"Blueprints for Smart Cities: Developing the methodology for a coordinated approach to the integration of the water and waste sectors within the EIP (European Innovation Partnership) Smart Cities and Communities". One of the main objectives of the project is to develop a set of indicators for energy, transport and ICT that will assess sustainability of cities complementing the City Blueprints and Trends and Pressures Framework.
Bio:
Tomasz Janus holds BEng and MSc degrees in Sanitary Engineering from Warsaw University of Technology and a PhD degree in Chemical Process Engineering from De Montfort University, UK. He has over 10 years of experience working both in industry and academia. His domain of expertise lies in modelling environmental systems, specifically wastewater treatment, water recycling, and process and energy optimisation in water and wastewater processing facilities. He is a tenured Senior Research Fellow at De Montfort University where he researches in membrane processes for wastewater treatment, process control, and pressure control in water distribution networks. He lectures in control and instrumentation and engineering mathematics. Tomasz has over 25 publications in peer reviewed journals and conferences.
Bio:
Leticia Ozawa-Meida is a Research Fellow Research Fellow in the Institute of Energy and Sustainable Development at De Montfort University in the United Kingdom. Leticia works on the quantification and evaluation of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions at the local, sectoral and organizational level using production-based and consumption-based calculation approaches. She has worked on research and consultancy projects for the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and JISC on measuring and reporting indirect ‘Scope 3’ GHG emissions, particularly related to procurement, water and waste management. She has also worked on a project funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) examining the scientific and technological viability of substituting the current diversity of utility products such as water, gas and electricity with a “single utility product” that can provide all the services required by the end-users. She has also worked on an EU and ICT PSP co-funded project titled “Saving Energy in Europe's Public Buildings Using ICT (SmartSpaces)” focusing on the evaluation of the impact that the energy management and energy decision support services implemented in each pilot site have on building users and consequently on energy and water savings.
Bio:
Bogumil Ulanicki graduated from Warsaw University of Technology in Poland in 1974 and received PhD in 1979 and DSc 1994 from the same university. Since 1987 he has been working at De Montfort University in Leicester in the UK. Currently he is Head of Centre of Engineering Science and Advanced Systems (CESAS) and Director of the Water Software Systems (WSS) research group. His expertise covers the areas of control and water engineering and IT. He has over 130 publications in world leading journals and refereed conference proceedings mainly in the water distribution systems management area. He is a member of the EPSRC College and acts as an EC projects reviewer. Prof. Ulanicki led 36 major projects of which 17 were research projects 19 contract research projects for the UK and the EU water industry.
Bio:
Piotr Skworcow holds BEng and MSc degrees in Computer Science from Wroclaw University of Technology in Poland and PgC in Systems and Control from Coventry University, UK. In 2008 he received PhD in Control Engineering from Coventry University. Since 2008 he has been working at De Montfort University in Water Software System in the areas of model predictive control, applied control systems, optimisation methods, software development, systems engineering, and water distribution systems management. He was a module leader in Control and Instrumentation Engineering. Dr. Skworcow was a co-organizer of series of workshops organized jointly by Coventry University, UK and Wroclaw University of Technology, Poland; co-editor (2006-2007) and editor (2008 - ongoing) of proceedings: Polish-British Workshop: Computer Systems Engineering, IET Control and Automation Professional Network. He has 9 journal papers and 33 refereed conference papers. Since 2014 he has been working as a Programmer Analyst at Callisto Integration.
Abstract
Utility–service provision is a process in which products are transformed by appropriate devices into services satisfying human needs and wants. Utility products required for these transformations are usually delivered to households via separate infrastructures, i.e., real-world networks such as, e.g., electricity grids and water distribution systems. However, provision of utility products in appropriate quantities does not itself guarantee that the required services will be delivered because the needs satisfaction task requires not only utility products but also fully functional devices. Utility infrastructures form complex networks and have been analysed as such using complex network theory. However, little research has been conducted to date on integration of utilities and associated services within one complex network. This paper attempts to fill this gap in knowledge by modelling utility–service provision within a household with a hypergraph in which products and services are represented with nodes whilst devices are hyperedges spanning between them. Since devices usually connect more than two nodes, a standard graph would not suffice to describe utility–service provision problem and therefore a hypergraph was chosen as a more appropriate representation of the system. This paper first aims to investigate the properties of hypergraphs, such as cardinality of nodes, betweenness, degree distribution, etc. Additionally, it shows how these properties can be used while solving and optimizing utility–service provision problem, i.e., constructing a so-called transformation graph. The transformation graph is a standard graph in which nodes represent the devices, storages for products, and services, while edges represent the product or service carriers. Construction of different transformation graphs to a defined utility–service provision problem is presented in the paper to show how the methodology is applied to generate possible solutions to provision of services to households under given local conditions, requirements and constraints.
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