Advances in information and communication technologies have significantly influenced the operation of low-voltage distribution grids. As essential elements of distribution grids, user-side smart meters find many smart grid applications, for example to measure electrical energy use and facilitate communications. However, the service models of distribution grids remain under development in association with upgrading of user-side smart meters. These meters are resource constrained, and challenging to upgrade on a large scale. To address this issue, this article describes a container-driven service architecture, in which containers are used to create a virtual dedicated agent (digital twin) for each user-side smart meter. The agent can be deployed either in the cloud or on an edge system, and can be upgraded to support emerging smart grid applications, thus minimizing the future upgrading requirements of user-side smart meters. We built experimental test beds to verify the proposed architecture and evaluated its performance in real-world experiments.

中文翻译：

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容器驱动的服务架构，最大限度降低配电网用户侧智能电表的升级需求


信息和通信技术的进步极大地影响了低压配电网的运行。作为配电网的重要组成部分，用户侧智能电表具有许多智能电网应用，例如测量电能使用情况和促进通信。但随着用户侧智能电表的升级改造，配电网的服务模式仍在不断发展。这些仪表资源有限，大规模升级具有挑战性。针对这个问题，本文提出了一种容器驱动的服务架构，通过容器为每个用户侧智能电表创建一个虚拟专用代理（数字孪生）。该代理可以部署在云端或边缘系统，并且可以升级以支持新兴的智能电网应用，从而最大限度地减少用户侧智能电表的未来升级需求。我们建立了实验测试台来验证所提出的架构并评估其在现实实验中的性能。