Towards new challenges for distribution system planners

The aim of this contribution is to look forward to the new challenges facing the system planners in general, and the distribution system planners in industrialized countries in particular. These challenges are caused by technical factors but also by the institutional changes which are taking place nowadays. The author does not intend to propose solutions, but rather to initiate a discussion around a number of topics including market liberalisation, dispersed generation, and equipment ageing. This could be useful to guide further work of CIRED in the plenary sessions or in working groups. The analysis is strictly limited to the field of systems planning, although links with other activities of CIRED are often quite obvious.