Dear Colleagues,

Due to the growing developments meant to raise the social welfare and intelligence of power grids, traditional power networks no longer meet today’s requirements. As new technologies such as smart inverters,  electric vehicles, and renewable energy-based power production are constantly evolving, they are constantly varying the efficiency of power grids. The dynamic of electrical power operation has changed because the new power grid topology has electrical currents from both sides that are not considered in traditional grids. Accordingly, power systems must be equipped with smart measurement capabilities and more advanced and stable control, as well as a communication platform. By applying equipment such as smart sensors, electric vehicles, telecommunication platforms, and modern controllers, more accurate data about the power grid status can be collected and decisions can be made in real time. Hence, a smart grid is a system that is compatible, reliable, and interactive, as well as a system that can integrate and optimize renewable energy resources. In addition, the specifications and requirements of the smart power grid infrastructure are divided into various layers such as security, applications, communications, power control, and power grids.

In smart power systems, compared to traditional power grids, new categories such as voltage-frequency control, power control, optimized power generation of each agent, power consumption, costs, and communication technologies to exchange data among power generation agents, load, and smart sensors must be considered for these new systems. Therefore, with the advent of the telecommunication platform for data exchange, the issue of information security, data mining, and the use of methods to raise the level of data security, such as blockchain technology, is raised. Additionally, the smart power grid should examine the physical and cyber layers of the system. Furthermore, the vulnerable and risky points of the data security level and data mining should be identified and considered. To reach an effective smart grid, the working principles of all electronic power elements in the power grid must be well analyzed. Therefore, different issues in a smart power grid should be examined and analyzed to obtain a smart power grid with high reliability and an optimized system with minimal power losses with a high resiliency capability.

Dr. Moslem Dehghani
Prof. Dr. Taher Niknam
Guest Editors

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• smart grid
• security
• cyber–physical system
• data
• optimization
• control
• renewable energy resources