A review of Smart Grid Technology, Components, and Implementation

This paper presents a brief review on smart grids. Environmental destruction that is marked by high CO2 level or green-house gas emissions due to excessive use of fossil fuels is a serious challenge that must be minimized immediately. One of the most prominent impact is the destruction of natural ecosystems such as forest fires due to very high temperature, rising sea level, flash flood, melting of iceberg in the north and south poles and uncertain natural climates. From the energy sec-tor that contribute most to global warming is the power generation sector. Currently there are still many power plants that use fossil fuels such as petroleum and coal as the main source of turbine drive in generating electrical energy. Renewable energy is capable of generating electrical energy without generating and increasing greenhouse gases. Current renewable energy utilization trends continue to increase which contributes to the birth of the smart grid concept. Current electricity transmission and distribution networks can be categorized as conventional electricity networks because they have not been able to provide excellent service and present real-time data. This network has not been able to provide reliability, safety and efficiency in supplying electrical energy even not yet have the flexibility to be integrated with the generation of renewable energy or microgrid. So the introduction of smart grid technology is a necessity to reduce the impact of global warming while encouraging efficiency, reliability and effective governance in the supply of electrical energy.