Measuring the “smartness” of the electricity grid

Abstract

Awareness among policy makers that electricity grids need to become smarter is growing. To allow policy makers to design policies for improving the smartness of grids, discussion is needed on what makes an electricity grid smart and how that this smartness can be measured. This paper provides a methodology to measure the smartness of the electricity grid. The defined framework consists of six characteristics which a smart grid should meet. Progress in the development of each characteristic is assessed by several key performance indicators. This allows to track the status of smart grid development.