SMART GRID; A NEW PARADIGM IN ELECTRICITY INDUSTRY

In recent two decades, restructuring and unbundling of vertically-integrated monopolies into separate generation, transmission and distribution entities were the most important issues of the power system, due to the excessive growth in electrical energy consumption and limited governmental funds. Aging equipment of power system and appearance of modern technologies in recent years have made new issues for system operators. As a response to these issues, smart grid is emerged to make two-way communication and even electricity flow between end-users and utilities possible. Reliability improvement of distribution networks, exploiting the sustainable energy resources, and energy efficiency are the three fundamental consequences of smart grid realization. In this paper, smart grid is treated as a new paradigm in electricity industry. Various technical and technological concepts, i.e. distributed generation (DG), plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV), distributed energy resource (DERs) are probed and their impacts on the planning and operation of the modern electricity industry is investigated in this paper. Finally, cyber security challenges are investigated in the smart grid area. Finally, cyber security challenges are investigated in the smart grid area.