Introduction

Looking beyond 2030, the challenges of efficient distribution and management for electricity networks are likely to get tougher. There exists a general consensus that the challenges of climate change, system security, and a need to accommodate significant volumes of decentralized and renewable generation, requires that the network infrastructure must be upgraded to enable smarter operation. The major changes to the way we supply energy and monitor its consumption by building a smarter grid lies at the heart of these changes.

Large increase in electricity contributed by intermittent/highly variable renewable resources, the increase of stressing/narrowly conditions on transmission system, a massive decoupling between generation/load caused by dc system and several other features expected into the future electricity networks will negatively affect the system stablility.

The reliable and sophisticated solutions to the unforeseen issues of the future networks are creating dynamically intelligent applications/solutions to be deployed during the incremental process of building a smarter grid.

The future electricity networks and their potential issues require looking beyond the existing research frontiers, independent of disciplinary boundaries. For this reason, a discussion of the future developments on sophisticated/intelligent applications/solutions is a key research issue, especially with the objective of integrating economic and social welfare into the design and maintenance of future smarter networks. Some of the solutions based on advanced technologies/methodologies will be discussed. Several technical studies based on the recent research work will also be presented.