Preface

In recent years, the electricity industry has been transformed from a regulated to a deregulated structure. This transformation introduced efficacy and market competition in the energy industry. Different sectors of the electricity industry are deregulated and developed into separate entities such as GENCO, TRANSCO, and DISCOMS. Further, smart grid technologies are going to be implemented in the electricity sector in various parts of the world. These technologies in the generation, transmission, and distribution sectors will supply the rapidly increasing energy demand. Such technologies are changing the modern energy systems very rapidly with increasingly multifaceted features. In the present energy sector, power generation, transmission, and distribution are not only the main functions of the energy utilities as system stability, reliability, efficacy, and security have become the major issues. These issues help energy utilities to manage, control, and operate the generation sources on a long-term basis, by reducing their effects on ecology and the environment. Planning and operation of the energy sector requires efficiency for maximizing the advantages for the utilities and also the consumers. Further, energy saving can be in a form of power generation that contributes to minimization of carbon emissions in the globe’s climate. In order to solve these problems, various techniques are continuously emerging. Implementation of these smart grid technologies supports exploration of renewable energy sources for their optimum utilization. However, there is still a huge gap between existing power generation and load demand. To meet this energy gap utilities are having to depend on traditional reliable energy sources along with intermittent renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, fuel cells, etc. Thus, for reliable operation of the electricity industry traditional sources of energy production are still used in various parts of the world. The dependence on these traditional generation sources creates a problem for the environment. Thus, utilization of the renewable energy sources and techniques for supplying the demand is an important issue for enhancing energy security. In this regard, green energy sources have attracted the attention of researchers from all over the globe. These sources will enhance high integration of renewable energy sources in the utility grid. The main issue with these renewable energy sources is their variable nature of generation, which depends on environmental conditions. Due to this, energy generation from solar and wind sources fluctuate in nature and directly affect generation frequency, voltage, and waveform and therefore affect the quality and amount of supply of energy to the integrated grid system. It is expected that the energy demand will increase by 70% from the present demand in the year 2030. However, the traditional energy sources are continuing to deplete day by day, which is a grave concern of energy usage per capita. The energy consumption per capita describes the living standard of a country. Thus it is essential that more renewable energy sources must be found that are locally available with optimization methods for enhancing energy generation efficiency.