The Smart Grid represents an unprecedented opportunity to move the energy industry into a new era of reliability, availability, and efficiency that will contribute to our economic and environmental health. During the transition period, it will be critical to carry out testing, technology improvements, consumer education, development of standards and regulations, and information sharing between projects to ensure that the benefits we envision from the Smart Grid become a reality.
Today, an electricity disruption such as a blackout can have a domino effect—a series of failures that can affect banking, communications, traffic, and security. This is a particular threat in the winter, when homeowners can be left without heat. A smarter grid will add resiliency to our electric power system and make it better prepared to address emergencies such as severe storms, earthquakes, large solar flares, and terrorist attacks. Because of its two-way interactive capacity, the Smart Grid will allow for automatic rerouting when equipment fails or outages occur. This will minimize outages and minimize the effects when they do happen. When a power outage occurs, Smart Grid technologies will detect and isolate the outages, containing them before they become large-scale blackouts. These new technologies will also help ensure that electricity recovery resumes quickly and strategically after an emergency—routing electricity to emergency services first, for example. In addition, the Smart Grid will take greater advantage of customer-owned power generators to produce power when it is not available from utilities. By combining these "distributed generation" resources, a community could keep its health center, police department, traffic lights, phone system, and grocery stores operating during emergencies. In addition, the Smart Grid is a way to address an aging energy infrastructure that needs to be upgraded or replaced.
This book shows that Smart Grids can address energy efficiency, bring increased awareness to consumers about the connection between electricity use and the environment, and bring increased national security to our energy system—drawing on greater amounts of home-grown electricity that is more resistant to natural disasters and attack.
Author Biography:
Dr Kolla Bhanu Prakash works as Professor and Research Group Head in the CSE Department, K L University, Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh, India. He received his MSc and MPhil in Physics from Acharya Nagarjuna University, Guntur, India, and his MEng and PhD in Computer Science Engineering from Sathyabama University, Chennai, India. Dr Prakash has 15+ years of experience working in academia, research, teaching and academic administration. His current research interests include AI, deep learning, data science, smart grids, cyber-physical systems, cryptocurrency, block-chain technology and image processing. Dr Prakash is an IEEE Senior Member. He is also Fellow-ISRD, Treasurer - ACM Amaravathi Chapter, India, LMISTE, MIAENG, SMIRED. He has reviewed more than 130 peer reviewed journals indexed in Publons. He has been editor for 6 books for Elsevier, CRC Press, Springer, Wiley and Degryuter publishers. He has published 75 research papers, 6 patents, 7 books, has had 4 books accepted. His Scopus H-index is 14. He is a frequent editorial board member and TPC member for flagship conferences and refereed journals. He is reviewer for the IEEE Access journal, Springer Nature, Inderscience Publishers, Applied Soft Computing Journal (Elsevier), Wireless Networks Journal, IET journals, KSII journal and IEEE Computer Society journals. He is Series Editor of Next Generation Computing & Communication Engineering (Wiley); currently 5 book agreements have been signed under this series. He is series editor for Industry 5.0: Artificial Intelligence, Cyber-Physical Systems, Mechatronics and Smart Grids (CRC ).
Dr Sanjeevikumar Padmanaban (Member 2012–Senior Member 2015, IEEE) received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Madras, Chennai, India, in 2002, his master's degree (Hons.) in electrical engineering from Pondicherry University, Puducherry, India, in 2006, and his PhD degree in electrical engineering from the University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy, in 2012. He was an Associate Professor with VIT University from 2012 to 2013. In 2013, he joined the National Institute of Technology, India, as a Faculty Member. In 2014, he was invited to be a Visiting Researcher at the Department of Electrical Engineering, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar, funded by the Qatar National Research Foundation (Government of Qatar). He continued his research activities with the Dublin Institute of Technology, Dublin, Ireland, in 2014. Further, he served as an Associate Professor with the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa, from 2016 to 2018. Since 2018, he has been a Faculty Member with the Department of Energy Technology, Aalborg University, Esbjerg, Denmark. He has authored over 300 scientific papers. Dr Padmanaban was the recipient of the Best Paper cum Most Excellence Research Paper Award from IET-SEISCON'13, IET-CEAT'16, IEEE-EECSI'19, IEEE-CENCON'19 and five best paper awards from ETAEERE'16 sponsored Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering, Springer book. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers, India, the Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers, India, and the Institution of Engineering and Technology, UK. He is an Editor/Associate Editor/Editorial Board Member for refereed journals, in particular the IEEE Systems Journal, IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, IEEE ACCESS, IET Power Electronics, IET Electronics Letters, and Wiley-International Transactions on Electrical Energy Systems, Subject Editorial Board Member for Energy Sources—Energies Journal, MDPI, and the Subject Editor for the IET Renewable Power Generation, IET Generation, Transmission and Distribution, and FACTS journal (Canada).
Dr Massimo Mitolo received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Napoli “Federico II”, Italy. He is a Fellow of IEEE “for contributions to the electrical safety of low-voltage systems”, and a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) of London (UK). He is a registered Professional Engineer in the state of California and in Italy. Dr Mitolo is currently a Full Professor of Electrical Engineering at Irvine Valley College, Irvine, CA, USA, and a Senior Consultant in the matter of failure analysis and electrical safety with Engineering Systems Inc., ESi. Dr Mitolo has authored over 150 journal papers and the books Electrical Safety of Low-Voltage Systems (McGraw-Hill), Laboratory Manual for Introduction to Electronics: A Basic Approach (Pearson), and Analysis of Grounding and Bonding Systems (CRC Press). Professor Mitolo’s research and industrial experience are in analysis and grounding of power systems, and electrical safety engineering. He is currently the deputy Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications. He is active within the Industrial and Commercial Power Systems Department of the IEEE Industry Applications Society (IAS) in numerous committees and working groups. The recipient of the IEEE Region 6 “2015 Outstanding Engineer Award”, Dr Mitolo has earned nine best paper awards, numerous achievements and recognitions, among which are the IEEE “Ralph H. Lee I&CPS Department Prize Paper Award”, the IEEE “I&CPS 2015 Department Achievement Award”, and the James E. Ballinger Engineer of the Year 2013 Award from the Orange County Engineering Council.
