Smart Grid

Epilogue

The topic of the smart grid, examined from a number of perspectives by the contributing authors of this volume, offers exciting opportunities, savings, benefits, and a host of features and functionalities that are simply beyond the capabilities of the existing grid. Moreover, taken together, the smart grid has the potential to usher the electric power sector into the information age, at last, as pointed out by Guido Bartels in the preface of the book.

But as one looks at the road ahead, it is abundantly clear that many remaining obstacles have to be overcome and pitfalls avoided—technical, regulatory, financial, and behavioral, to name a few—if we are to achieve the full potential benefits of the smart grid. In this sense, the smart grid ...