Planning and Control Techniques of Smart Grids

An electrical grid is an interconnection between electricity producers and consumers. Electricity generation, transmission and distribution are conducted by electrical grids. It forms the backbone of a power system. But, at present, the conventional grid-based power system suffers various issues due to its old infrastructure and absence of ‘smart’ components in it. The traditional grid system cannot conduct large-scale renewable generation and distributed generation. There are no storing elements present in the conventional grid system that can store electricity from intermittent renewable energy sources. This traditional grid system is not able to analyze real-time consumption characteristics of consumers. To combat these problems, the implementation of smart grid is needed at large-scale. Smart grid is capable of bidirectional flow of electricity and data. With the help of smart metering system, it can analyze consumption characteristics of end-users. Smart grids have the capability of ‘self-healing’ and AI-based fault detection. Therefore, smart grid can revolutionize whole energy sector with the help of all the smart technologies and features. But, the development of smart grid into the conventional energy sector is not an easy task and it is continuously evolving. This evolution process requires perfect planning and control strategies. So, in this article planning and control techniques are reviewed with the future aspects of smart grid-based power system.