The smart grid is a vision of the future electricity delivery infrastructure that improves network efficiency and resilience, while empowering consumers and addressing energy sustainability concerns.The modernized electrical grid uses analogue or digital information and communications technology to gather and act on information, such as information about the behaviors of suppliers and consumers, in an automated fashion to improve the efficiency, reliability, economics, and sustainability of the production and distribution of electricity.

To make the grid “smarter,” and capable of addressing the need to decarbonize generation sources and enable end-user energy efficiency, utilities will have to improve observability and controllability of their networks, while transforming them into geodesic structures that intersperse a variety of distributed energy resources.