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Smart-meter load forecasting is essential for distribution-grid operation, flexibility scheduling, congestion management, and renewable integration. However, centralizing household-level smart-meter records can expose private behavioral patterns and reduce consumer trust. This article proposes a federated forecasting framework for accurate smart-meter load prediction across heterogeneous distribution feeders. The framework enables multiple feeders to collaboratively train forecasting models without transferring raw household consumption data. The proposed framework combines feeder-local temporal neural networks, federated aggregation, feeder-aware personalization, and optional differential privacy. It is validated through simulation on multi-feeder smart-meter datasets with different customer mixes, photovoltaic penetration levels, missing-data rates, and load variability. The framework achieves forecasting accuracy close to a centralized privacy-free benchmark while outperforming local-only and non-personalized federated baselines under strong feeder heterogeneity. Differential privacy introduces a controlled accuracy penalty that remains acceptable for day-ahead and intra-day feeder operation. The proposed federated forecasting framework provides a practical privacy-preserving solution for distribution system operators that need accurate load forecasts across diverse feeders. The results indicate that collaborative learning can preserve household privacy while improving feeder-level prediction accuracy.

This study explores the consequences of synchronized false data injection attacks (FDIAs) on voltage behavior in smart microgrids that rely on renewable-based distributed energy resources (DERs)—a cornerstone of modern smart city energy infrastructure. Employing both simulation-based and real-world experimental techniques, the work introduces a unified framework for analyzing and defending against coordinated threats, thereby safeguarding the reliable operation of renewable-integrated DERs, which are central to today’s urban power ecosystems. In the proposed scenario, multiple attackers independently select the most effective moments to execute two complementary cyberattacks, one producing undervoltage and the other causing overvoltage within the same smart microgrid. Each attack model is driven by an objective function that maximizes the severity of voltage deviations—either excessive undervoltage or harmful overvoltage—induced by its corresponding FDIA. Under this coordinated scheme, the adversaries construct a multi-objective optimization problem (MOOP) that simultaneously provokes significant voltage violations across the microgrid’s most exposed zones. Due to the competing objectives in this MOOP, a Pareto-front approach is applied to generate a set of non-dominated optimal solutions, along with a single best compromise solution (BCS). The potency of this combined FDIA strategy is substantiated through detailed simulation studies and laboratory-based experiments. Specifically, the well-known IEEE 13-node test feeder was reconfigured to represent a microgrid environment for the numerical simulations, while the physical validation utilized a small-scale hybrid photovoltaic/wind microgrid testbed featuring actual renewable generation sources. 

This study introduces a coordinated control approach to address the challenge of volt-var optimization (VVO), incorporating load tap-changing transformers, step-voltage regulators, and switched-capacitor banks, along with a photovoltaic (PV)-integrated microgrid. The harmony search (HS) metaheuristic algorithm was applied to efficiently compute the globally optimal operating parameters for these devices, ensuring robust performance across fluctuating operating conditions. The key aims of the volt-var control strategy were to achieve substantial reductions in active power losses, peak demand, and voltage deviations throughout the distribution system, while simultaneously maintaining bus voltages within acceptable regulatory limits under all possible load scenarios. The optimization problem is a mixed-integer nonlinear program with discrete decision variables, binary variables representing capacitor bank switching states (on/off), integer variables for voltage regulator tap positions, continuous variables for the microgrid’s injected current, and nonlinear network power-flow constraints. The proposed methodology was tested and validated on the standard IEEE 13-node distribution test feeder. Time-series simulations used realistic daily load profiles from the main grid, along with the microgrid’s PV output, both resolved at 15-minute intervals. All power flow computations were carried out with OpenDSS (version 9.5.1.1, released in 2022), an established open-source distribution system analysis tool. The developed control framework supports both real-time operation and long-term planning studies. Simulation results showed that the integrated volt-var coordination significantly reduced total active power losses, lowered peak demand, and effectively mitigated voltage variations across the network.