Locating experts and carving out the state of the art: A systematic review on Industry 4.0 and energy system analysis

Abstract

Summary As Germany's manufacturing industry highly depends on international competitiveness, German companies must rapidly assimilate to current processes of digitization and so‐called Industry 4.0. These processes will also affect the German energy system. Understanding and predicting the implications of these changes is one of the core elements of energy system analysis. To address this issue, herein, we present a structured and systematic review of literature within the intersection of industrial digitalization in the sense of Industry 4.0 and scientific energy system analysis. The goals of this study are (1) to reveal the locations and institutions of relevant experts and (2) to carve out the current state of the art with regard to technologies that enable (digitized) industries to interact with the energy system in order to contribute to a smart energy system. Our approach is based on a systematic and reproducible keyword search using the scientific literature database Scopus. Both a quantitative evaluation and a qualitative evaluation of the relevant literature are conducted. The quantitative results are presented using GIS‐based visualizations. This facilitates us to identify the European Union as main contributor on a global level and the United Kingdom as the most prolifically publishing country within the European Union. Focusing on Germany, we find North Rhine‐Westphalia to be the most scientifically active area and Aachen/Dortmund to be the cities where most publications originate. In the qualitative, content‐based part of this review, we show that in particular sector coupling and the integration of distributed energy prosumers can lead to a working smart energy system. We demonstrate that industrial digitalization processes in the sense of Industry 4.0 can serve as enabling factor in this respect. Further, we provide extensive summaries regarding both the technological and economic potentials and challenges of different technologies in future smart energy systems. Taking all of the results into account, we outline a framework to connect the highly discussed topics of digitalized industries and smart energy systems to corresponding experts.

Generating Transparency in the Worldwide Use of the Terminology Industry 4.0

“…Furthermore, we provide a comprehensive picture, while other reviews surrounding the research field Industry 4.0 have focused on special aspects of the term, such as: -edge computing [16]; -additive manufacturing/three-dimensional printing [17]; -cyber-physical production systems [18]; -construction industry [19]; -remanufacturing [20]; -environmentally-sustainable manufacturing [21,22]; -interactions with the energy system [23].…”

“…According to the pre-study, the following keywords are most relevant to cover this subject area: smart product, smart factory, and smart manufacturing (the well-known topic of the smart grid was not covered, since it only marginally overlaps with the topic of Industry 4.0. For further analyses of the intersection between energy system analysis and Industry 4.0, please see [23]).…”

Integration Opportunities of Power-to-Gas and Internet-of-Things Technical Advancements: A Systematic Literature Review

“…Regarding the "most relevant" studies, P2G and IoT appeared usually within mostly integrative and smart energy frameworks which were, however, described by different terminologies (Table 3). For example, Nolting et al [64] carried out an SLR on industrial digitalization in the sense of Industry 4.0 and scientific energy system analysis to explore the technologies that enable (digitized) industries to interact with the energy system in…”

“…Regarding the "most relevant" studies, P2G and IoT appeared usually within mostly integrative and smart energy frameworks which were, however, described by different terminologies (Table 3). For example, Nolting et al [64] carried out an SLR on industrial digitalization in the sense of Industry 4.0 and scientific energy system analysis to explore the technologies that enable (digitized) industries to interact with the energy system in order to contribute to a future smart energy system (SES), which comprises the transportation, the industry and the heat sectors (in which P2G could be used). In contrast, Salehi et al [65] wrote about a multi-energy hub (MEH), which involves different hubs for residential energy, commercial energy and industrial energy with different technologies (e.g., P2G) and is controlled by IoT.…”

Trends for Stirling Engines in Households: A Systematic Literature Review

“…According to Massaro et al [28], "it is important to understand, that all research is a journey and not a strict series of events", thus there is circularity and iteration involved, which is also depicted in the research protocol. The advantages of introducing circularity into the literature review process include the ability to profoundly explore the background of the topic and to account for the rapid changes in the field of research [31,32]. We have thus devised a sequential and structured literature review process that also incorporates a degree of circularity and iteration.…”