Guest Editorial Special Issue on IoT for Power Grids

Recent years have witnessed the exciting developments for the power grid. For instance, many traditional mechanical components are being replaced by modern electronics devices that can operate intelligently; new elements, such as renewable energy resources and various large-scale energy storage, are introduced into the grid to bring a new outlook on the system operation and control; smart appliances are produced to facilitate more customized and efficient energy usage; and advanced sensors, such as the phasor measurement units (PMUs) and the advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), are designed and implemented for real-time wide-area monitoring of the system conditions. In general, the power grid is increasingly organized and managed as an interconnected network of many different individual components that operate intelligently in a distributed but connected manner, as opposed to the traditional centralized fashion. In other words, the power grid is evolving into a big Internet of Things (IoT).