Preface
Conventional grids throughout the world
are being changed by the inventions of
various technologies. With the increased
maturity of renewable energy technologies,
the distributed generation concept has
evolved as a readily available source of en-
ergy for the areas where the sources are
abundantly available. These distributed
generation technologies need to be inte-
grated into the existing grid. To record the
transactions of electricity between these
microgrids and the main grid, a communi-
cation network and an advanced metering
infrastructure are required. These concepts
are merged in the smart grid.
The smart grid is not a limited field that
confines itself to limited concepts. It is a vast
field integrating smart metering, communi-
cation technologies, renewable energy
sources, power grids, forecasting techniques,
power electronics, thermodynamics, electric
vehicles, and energy storage systems. The
smart grid will support the improvement
of energy efficiency and the utilization of re-
newable energy sources. The energy man-
agement system integrated into the smart
grid will optimize energy sources and
harnessing techniques. This book gives an in-
sight into all the above-stated fields of the
smart grid with its associated key features.
It also describes the key enabling technolo-
gies and thus permits the reader to engage
with the immediate development of the
xi
power system and take part in the debate
over the future of the smart grid.
Chapter 1 gives the introduction to the
smart grid and discusses the communication
technologies that are used in it. Chapter 2
gives an insight into the conventional and re-
newable energy technologies that are inte-
grated into the smart grid. Chapter 3 gives
a detailed overview of the power grids and
their key parts and concepts. Chapter 4 de-
scribes the power electronics-based solid-
state switches and the power electronics con-
verters that are used in the smart grid for the
transformation of voltage from one form to
another. This chapter also presents the
MATLAB® simulation of rectifiers, con-
verters, inverters, and cycloconverters.
Chapters 5 and 6 discuss the planning and
modeling of solar photovoltaics and wind
energy systems, respectively. Chapter 7
describes the microgrids and topologies of
hybrid energy systems, and introduces the
energy optimizing software HOMER and
RETScreen, which are used for microgrids
and hybrid energy systems. Chapter 8 de-
scribes energy forecasting techniques, which
use the data collected from smart sensors
and smart meters. This unstructured data is
used to forecast future energy generation
and consumption patterns. Chapter 9 pre-
sents energy storage technologies that can
be integrated into distributed generation
and the smart grid, and discusses the
xii Preface

ancillary services that these storage systems
provide to the smart grid. Chapter 10 de-
scribes the topologies of electric vehicles
and their integration into the smart grid.
Chapter 11 concludes by discussing the cur-
rent global status of the smart grid. The tech-
nical contents of the book include specialized
topics that will appeal to engineers from
various disciplines looking to enhance their
knowledge of technologies that are making
an increasing contribution to the realization
of the smart grid.
Muhammad Kamran
Riphah International University,
Islamabad, Pakistan