ABSTRACT
The introduction of state-of-the-art Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to next-generation power grid, synonymously Smart Grid (SG), leverages utilities for supporting bidirectional flow of electric power and digital information [1]. The SG is bestowed with advanced synchronization and monitoring facilities with human in the loop, realizing optimized cum automated power delivery network [2]. The SG overhauls the century-old legacy power grid by eradicating the inherent flaws such as unidirectional data flow, energy wastage, upsurge of energy demands, consistency, reliability security, sustainability, and many more [3–5]. The two-way flow support in SG architecture integrates a wide range of stakeholders to actively participate in the decentralized energy trade across the cascaded generation, transmission, distribution, and consumption domain [6,7]. The delineation of energy vendors and consumers is now abridged and are now acting as prosumers (producer plus consumer) [8]. For instance, the SG supports penetration of Electric Vehicles (EVs) to participate in both G2V (grid to vehicle) mode while charging and V2G (vehicle to grid) mode while discharging into energy market. The connected Home Area Networks (HAN) that play role of nano-pico grids are other emerging examples [9]. The SG ensures efficient connection and exploitation of all means of production, provides automatic and real-time management of the electrical networks, allows better measurement of consumption, optimizes the level of reliability, and improves the existing services, thus leading to energy savings and economic 291energy costs and tariffs [10,11]. Moreover, the SG is adapted to demand peaks as well energy wastage, because such issues are efficiently fixed through efficient implementation of real-time pricing, self-healing, demand response (DR) mechanisms, power consumption scheduling, dynamic energy management (DEM), and efficient demand-side management (DSM) policies [12]. Such policies significantly improve the power quality as well as the efficiency of the grid by maintaining an optimal balance between power generation and its usage [9]. Added to this, the SG aims to achieve steady availability of power, energy sustainability, environmental protection, prevention of large-scale failures, as well as optimized operational expenses (OPEX) of power production and distribution, and reduced future capital expenses (CAPEX) for thermal generators and transmission networks [13].
