A Comprehensive Assessment of the Need and Availability of Smart Grid Technologies in an Electricity Distribution Grid Network

The electrical distribution grids face major problems such as aggregate technical and commercial losses and integration of distributed energy resources. There are also several operational problems such as inaccurate meter reading, blackouts and outages, huge data compilation, etc. With the availability of automatic metering infrastructure and phasor monitoring units, many of these problems can be addressed. With the rapid progress in power electronic converter technology, the problems in integration of distributed energy resources can be efficiently resolved. However, the necessary prerequisite for getting all these benefits is remote monitoring and control. For effective demand response and price responsive demand, transparency and communication with the consumer and consumer—end systems are essential. For interoperability between the devices of various smart grid technologies, the rapid advances in communication technologies on Zig Bee, cellular communication WiMAX, power line communication are being used. In spite of the smart grid communication standards being not in place, the present standards from various bodies are being used. This has given shape to several data analytics applications with crunching of huge data from smart grid network operations.