The “Smart” Concept from an Electrical Sustainability Viewpoint

Ignacio Llanez-Caballero, Luis Ibarra (), Angel Peña-Quintal, Glendy Catzín-Contreras, Pedro Ponce, Arturo Molina and Ricardo Ramirez-Mendoza
Additional contact information
Ignacio Llanez-Caballero: Institute of Advanced Materials for Sustainable Manufacturing, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico City 14380, Mexico
Luis Ibarra: Institute of Advanced Materials for Sustainable Manufacturing, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico City 14380, Mexico
Angel Peña-Quintal: Power Electronics Machines and Control—Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK
Glendy Catzín-Contreras: School of Engineering and Sciences, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Monterrey 64849, Mexico
Pedro Ponce: Institute of Advanced Materials for Sustainable Manufacturing, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico City 14380, Mexico
Arturo Molina: Institute of Advanced Materials for Sustainable Manufacturing, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico City 14380, Mexico
Ricardo Ramirez-Mendoza: School of Engineering and Sciences, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Monterrey 64849, Mexico

Energies, 2023, vol. 16, issue 7, 1-22

Abstract: Nowadays, there are many technological-intensive applications that claim to be “smart”. From smartphones to the smart grid, people relate the word smart with technical novelty, automation, enabled communication, and service integration. There is indeed a gap between those smart technologies and their intended “intelligence”; this has arisen an indirect debate between works focusing on automation and mechatronics design and others pursuing a conceptual approach based on fulfilling determinate objectives. One last approach relates the said smartness to deep learning methodologies. In this work, it is attempted to explore both perspectives by providing an overview of recent works around energy usage toward smart cities and the smart grid , pointing out the main conceptual pillars upon which both approaches stand. Certainly, there are enabling technologies supporting the smart concept overall; thus, this work addresses them to characterize “smart” not from technological or conceptual one-sided viewpoints but from their common backbone. Therefore, the interested reader can find in this work an integrative conceptualization of the smart context, a literature review of recent advances, and a deep discussion of how enabling technologies and current technological trends based on energy consumption are shaping the ongoing efforts toward a sustainable future. More importantly, a new approach to define smart in the said context is elaborated far from the typical misunderstanding of technological nesting or mere usage of “advanced” digital technologies. Rather, smartness is addressed by the integrative objectives the application pursues, the objectives set by its users’ intent, and the attained results in terms of public benefit.

Keywords: smart grids; smart cities; smart buildings; smart houses; smart devices (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/7/3072/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/7/3072/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:16:y:2023:i:7:p:3072-:d:1109744

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().