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Electricity is one of the cornerstones of our Society [1], and as such, its generation, transport, and distribution need to be a fully functional and efficient system. All the dependencies that other essential services for the functioning of the economy and society have on electricity (see Figure 1.1), and the extent to which electricity is also affected by all of them, determine the need to have all of these services evolving in an efficient and coordinated way, while stimulating the adoption of new technologies.

Figure 1.1 Electricity at the core of critical services. Dependencies are based on services provided among them.

Source: Department of Energy – USA [1].

It is widely recognized that electricity in general, and electrification in particular, are among the major achievements of the twentieth century [2], despite the fact that there are still big parts of the world where electricity is not affordable (electrification today is total in developed countries, while, as reported in [3], there were still 1100 million people in 2016 who live without electricity elsewhere). As A.C. Clarke expressed it in [2], “the harnessing and taming of electricity, first for communications and then for power, is the event that divides our age from all those that have gone before.” However, it is also true that electricity supply tends to go unnoticed, as a nearly invisible service attached to our modern way of life, that “is already there.”

The electric grid is a complex system reaching every other activity. It is composed of a large number of elements, spread all over where human activity is present; it is controlled to deliver its service in the most reliable and resilient manner. From a purely technical perspective, the grid has evolved improving its associated control capabilities, from its center to the edge across the entire system, and inherits much of the means used in times where remote control was only a wish, and needed electromechanical elements and procedures to minimize manual interventions for incidents resolution. Moreover, and as an inherent characteristic of its nature, much of the electric system is regulated by Governments, meaning that the control over the grid goes beyond the network technical aspects.