Integration of Advanced Technologies for Efficient Operation of Smart Grids

The current transition of electrical power systems toward smart grids is encompassing a fundamental change in their structure, as well as operation. This is setting the path to be followed by the hardware and software embedded in electrical power systems, as well as technology adaptation to the “open-source” customers’ needs and consumption patterns. This chapter is following the evolution of energy sector, accompanied by constant improvements of technology, which is providing increasingly complex hardware, which embeds power quality improvement devices, for an efficient operation of electrical power assets. This chapter presents a comprehensive survey of continuous advances of renewable energy sources and storage technology which have started the transformation of end users into energy-efficient and clean prosumers, underlining the subsequent energy markets support of peer-to-peer energy trading through novel technologies as blockchain.