Smart Grid Solutions for the Reliable and Effective Design and Operation of Electrical Infrastructures

Dear Colleagues,

In recent years, the rising share of renewable energy sources and the growth in the demand of electricity, together with the need for an increasingly good quality of supply, are more and more requiring the adoption of suitable strategies for development, planning, and operation of electrical networks. In this framework, solutions belonging to the Smart Grid paradigm play an important role in solving common and new problems affecting electric networks. This has been made possible by the new technologies made available in the last few decades, especially based on ICT advancements, but also by novel strategies and approaches developed through the extremely fervent research activity carried out worldwide.

This fast evolution, mostly fostered by the changing needs of users and environmental sustainability concerns, is strongly impacting both transmission and distribution networks. Due to the increasing penetration of renewable energy sources, the transmission system often requires a deep rethinking of its operating and design logics. New developments in this direction must be introduced at local levels to solve, for example, congestion caused by either the uneven spreading of renewables or the unexpected growth demand of electricity; at the country level, new developments are needed in order to manage wider problems, such as very steep load ramps or scarce predictability in load and generation power profiles. Moreover, the challenging issues networks are currently facing also require a better coordination among national power systems, toward an increasingly effective cross-border integration. As a result, an enhanced competition within the internal energy markets is expected, but also a greater ability of network infrastructures to ensure a reliable and efficient power supply, particularly during extreme and wide-ranging meteorological events, which put to the test the resilience of the electrical infrastructure.

Distribution networks are another pivotal element in this evolution, since they have a primary role in ensuring a capillary energy delivery to final users and, more recently, in hosting large amounts of dispersed generation and to face the fast growth demand of electricity. Medium voltage and low voltage networks are most probably the portion of power systems structure that in perspective will benefit more from Smart Grid solutions. In fact, they have large margins of improvement with respect to the traditional approaches adopted in the past for their design and control, usually relying on a passive behavior of distribution grids. The need for improved design, operating performances, cost containment and other emerging needs are all factors fostering the introduction in this field of advanced design approaches, new technologies (such as energy storage systems), improvements in the existing ones (e.g., improved protection and automation systems) and the development of new logics to manage the existing assets, especially devoted to enable a better integration and coordination with the transmission system.

In such a framework, this Special Issue aims to bring together scientists and researchers to publish both
state-of-the-art papers and original research contributions on the topic “Smart Grid solutions for the reliable and effective design and operation of electrical infrastructures.”

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• approaches for an optimal power system planning and operation
• coordination schemes for users and flexibility resources aggregation
• coordination schemes among network operators
• new technologies integration (e.g., energy storage systems or electric mobility)
• strategies for the ancillary services provision by DERs, loads, storage, etc.
• power system reliability and resilience
• advanced asset management systems
• regulatory framework
• advanced grid automation and protection schemes
• software tools for networks modeling and management

Dr. Davide Falabretti
Prof. Dr. Samuele Grillo
Dr. Alessandro Bosisio
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• smart grids
• transmission and distribution networks
• planning and operation
• resilience
• continuity of service