Connecting Smart Cities and Smart Villages: Providing Safe, Reliable Energy Delivery [In My View]

As this issue of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine addresses smart cities and smart villages, let us first address the connection between them. One lies in the history of electrical energy delivery. The first electrical systems were distributed, with electric power plants delivering power to local loads. Thomas Edison opened his first commercial electric power plant in 1882 on Pearl Street in New York, serving emerging city lighting. Within a decade, electric power had spread across the globe with many new applications. This expansion was accomplished by the construction of a reliable power pool or interconnected power system that focused on generating power from central generating stations.