Technologies Behind the Smart Grid and Internet of Things: A System Survey

Electric smart grids enable a bidirectional flow of electricity and information among power system assets. For proper monitoring and controlling of power quality, reliability, scalability and flexibility, there is a need for an environmentally friendly system that is transparent, sustainable, cost-saving, energy-efficient, agile and secure. This paper provides an overview of the emerging technologies behind smart grids and the internet of things. The dependent variables are identified by analyzing the electricity consumption patterns for optimal utilization and planning preventive maintenance of their legacy assets like power distribution transformers with real-time parameters to ensure an uninterrupted and reliable power supply. In addition, the paper sorts out challenges in the traditional or legacy electricity grid, power generation, transmission, distribution, and revenue management challenges such as reducing aggregate technical and commercial loss by reforming the existing manual or semi-automatic techniques to fully smart or automatic systems. This article represents a concise review of research works in creating components of the smart grid like smart metering infrastructure for postpaid as well as in prepaid mode, internal structure comparison of advanced metering methods in present scenarios, and communication systems.