Utilities in North America and throughout the world are incorporating new technologies
towards implementing the next-generation electricity grid known as the ‘‘intelligent grid’’
or ‘‘smart grid’’. A smart grid accommodates a wide variety of generation options,
enables customers to interact with energy management systems to adjust their energy
use, predicts looming failures and takes corrective actions to mitigate system problems
in a self-healing manner. The move towards a smart grid started with the distribution
system, including the introduction of advanced meter infrastructure (AMI), which
provides utilities with two-way communication to meters at customers’ premises and the
ability to modify customers’ service-level parameters. The next step is to implement
distributed demand and control strategies that are integrated with AMI in a transition to
the smart grid. The following article describes the evolution of smart grids and smart
microgrids including their basic ingredients and topologies [19].