The Smart Way

The growing awareness of carbon emissions in power generation, increased electricity demand and difficulties in the integration of renewable energy into the grid cannot be overlooked. This calls for the development of a more flexible and controllable grid called the Smart Grid. This paper gives an overview of the different Smart Grid agents such as Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), Renewable Energy, Improved Transmission Applications, Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) and Grid Management Systems. These agents were placed in phases to show the different progressive stages of the Smart Grid integration into the existing power system. The impact of the transformation of the existing power grid to the future grid was broken down into three stages: The end-user experience sphere, smart grid sphere and systems sphere. Defining these stages in smart grid maturity will give us a concept of a pathway towards achieving the solution goals of an intelligent grid.