A survey on consumers empowerment, communication technologies, and renewable generation penetration within Smart Grid

The Smart Grid (SG) is a technological transformation from conventional electric grid, electro-mechanically controlled system, to smart, intelligent, and electronically controlled system called the “Smart Grid” (SG). There are about 20–30% losses present in the conventional electric grid due to substandard operations at generation, transmission and distribution side. The major players in the transformation are: (a) increased electricity cost, (b) aging infrastructure, (c) carbon footprint, (d) Green House Gas emissions, (e) climate change, and (f) less efficient electrical network. The promising features of the Smart Grid are: (a) intelligent de-centralized control, (b) resilience, (c) flexibility, (d) sustainability, (e) digitalization, (f) intelligence, (g) consumer empowerment, (h) green energy, and (i) smart infrastructure. The fundamental issues and open challenges in the SG are lack of awareness, consumer acceptance, cyber terrorism, data collection management, energy metering, dynamic optimization and energy control. Considering above, in this paper, a comprehensive review exploring information of development, technologies, and techniques in the SG. The main goal is to investigate and reveal the key enabling technologies, to obtain better picture about the current status of SG development. The focus areas of this review study are Architectural Model focusing Consumer Empowerment (CE), Demand Response Program (DRP), and Demand Side Management (DSM). Our survey discusses in detail the Communication Technologies, such as Wireless Advance Metering Infrastructure (AMI), Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU), Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA), and Machine to Machine Communication (M2M). The power systems such as Micro Grid, Nano Grid, Pico Grid, Inter Grid, Virtual Power Plants, and Distributed Generation are also elaborated in this review study. Renewable Energy Resources (RERs) Integration with the SG and Integration issues related to Distributed generation (DG) are presented in this survey. This survey also analyzes Architectural Model of the Smart Grid focusing consumer empowerment and prosumers interaction. The aim of this study is to provide deep understanding of technologies and their applications in the SG.