The continuously increasing complexity of modern and sustainable power and energy systems leads to a wide range of solutions developed by industry and academia. To manage such complex system-of-systems, proper engineering and validation approaches, methods, concepts, and corresponding tools are necessary. The Smart Grid Architecture Model (SGAM), an approach that has been developed during the last couple of years, provides a very good and structured basis for the design, development, and validation of new solutions and technologies. This review therefore provides a comprehensive overview of the state-of-the-art and related work for the theory, distribution, and use of the aforementioned architectural concept. The article itself provides an overview of the overall method and introduces the theoretical fundamentals behind this approach. Its usage is demonstrated in several European and national research and development projects. Finally, an outlook about future trends, potential adaptations, and extensions is provided as well.

The ongoing integration of decentralized, renewable energies is a major challenge for today's power system. In order to control the volatile behaviour of these Distributed Energy Resources (DER), the electricity system has to evolve towards a Smart Grid. The development of this critical and complex System-of-Systems involves different stakeholder from different disciplines. Thus, domain specific engineering concepts on system level are needed. To foster the interdisciplinary development, the proposed approach presents a standards-based architecture framework, implemented as Domain Specific Language (DSL). Moreover, the DSL is used to develop a reference architecture on basis of the NIST Logical Reference Model. To evaluate the applicability of the reference architecture model it is used for instantiation of a particular system solution.

Contemporary manufacturing systems are undergoing a major change promoted by emerging technologies such as Cyber-physical Systems (CPS) or the Internet of Things (IoT). This trend, nowadays widely known by the term “Industry 4.0”, leads to a new kind of automated production. However, the rising number of dynamically interconnected elements in industrial production lines results in such a system being transformed into a complex System of Systems (SoS). Due to the increasing complexity and the challenges accompanied by this change, conventional engineering methods using generic principles reach their limits when developing this type of systems. With varying approaches only trying to find a solution for small-scaled areas of this problem statement, the need for a holistic methodology becomes more and more obvious. Having recognized this issue, one of the most promising approaches has been introduced with the Reference Architecture Model Industry 4.0 (RAMI 4.0). However, in the current point of view, this domain-specific architecture framework is missing specifications to address all aspects of such a critical infrastructure. Thus, this paper introduces a comprehensive modeling approach utilizing methods applied in Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) and including domain-specific particularities as well as architectural concepts with the goal to enable mutual engineering of current and future industrial systems. The resulting artifacts, a domain-specific language (DSL), an architecture definition and a development process, are thereby consolidated in a ready to use software framework, whose applicability was evaluated by a real-world case study.

The development of Smart Grid systems has proven to be a challenging task. Besides the inherent technical complexity, the involvement of different stakeholders from different disciplines is a major challenge. In order to maintain the strict security requirements, holistic systems engineering concepts and reference architectures are required that enable the integration, maintenance and evaluation of Smart Grid security. In this paper, a conceptual approach is presented on how to enable the integration of security by design in the development of Smart Grid Systems. A major cornerstone of this approach is the development of a domain-specific and standards-based modelling language on basis of the M/490 Smart Grid Architecture Model (SGAM). Furthermore, this modelling approach is utilized to develop a reference architecture model on basis of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Logical Reference Model (LRM) with its integrated security concepts. The availability of a standards-based reference architecture model enables the instantiation of particular solutions with a profound basis for security. Moreover, it is demonstrated how such architecture models can be utilized to gain insights into potential security implications and furthermore can serve as a basis for implementation.

The complexity of today's power systems is continuously increasing due to the paradigm shift towards Smart Grids. This leads to a large number of use cases that need to be covered by holistic future energy systems of which power grids are just one subsystem. However, providing information about those use cases in a structured way in order to obtain a common basis for information exchange has often not been considered in the past. Covering this gap has led to the development of use case templates in the IEC and the Smart Grid Architecture Model in the EU Mandate M/490. Furthermore, regarding the usability of these two approaches, the SGAM Toolbox and the Use Case Management Repository have been developed as appropriate tool support. In this paper, a third component for visual analysis purposes is introduced. The overall goal of the approach proposed in this paper is to integrate these three components into a comprehensive toolchain that supports the whole process from use case development to visualization in compliance to the findings of EU Mandate M/490.