Smart Grids: Infrastructure, Technology, and Solutions (Electric Power and Energy Engineering)

What exactly is smart grid? Why is it receiving so much attention? What are utilities, vendors, and regulators doing about it? Answering these questions and more, Smart Grids: Infrastructure, Technology, and Solutions gives readers a clearer understanding of the drivers and infrastructure of one of the most talked-about topics in the electric utility market―smart grid. This book brings together the knowledge and views of a vast array of experts and leaders in their respective fields.

Key Features

• Describes the impetus for change in the electric utility industry
• Discusses the business drivers, benefits, and market outlook of the smart grid initiative
• Examines the technical framework of enabling technologies and smart solutions
• Identifies the role of technology developments and coordinated standards in smart grid, including various initiatives and organizations helping to drive the smart grid effort
• Presents both current technologies and forward-looking ideas on new technologies
• Discusses barriers and critical factors for a successful smart grid from a utility, regulatory, and consumer perspective
• Summarizes recent smart grid initiatives around the world
• Discusses the outlook of the drivers and technologies for the next-generation smart grid

Smart grid is defined not in terms of what it is, but what it achieves and the benefits it brings to the utility, consumer, society, and environment. Exploring the current situation and future challenges, the book provides a global perspective on how the smart grid integrates twenty-first-century technology with the twentieth-century power grid.