A Vision of Smart Transmission Grids

Modern power grid is required to become smarter in order to provide an affordable, reliable, and sustainable supply of electricity. Under such circumstances, considerable activities have been carried out in the U.S. and Europe to formulate and promote a vision for the development of the future smart power grids. However, the majority of these activities only placed emphasis on the distribution grid and demand side; while the big picture of the transmission grid in the context of smart grids is still unclear. This paper presents a unique vision for the future smart transmission grids in which the major features that these grids must have are clearly identified. In this vision, each smart transmission grid is regarded as an integrated system that functionally consists of three interactive, smart components, i.e., smart control centers, smart transmission networks, and smart substations. The features and functions of each of the three functional components as well as the enabling technologies to achieve these features and functions are discussed in detail in the paper.