Smart Grids and Energy Trilemma of Affordability, Reliability and Sustainability : The Inevitable Paradigm Shift in Power Sector

Development and adoption of energy sources that meet the objectives of modern societies poses a new challenge in the world. The current European energy policies aim at ensuring an energy portfolio that supports a cleaner environment and strengthens supply security by providing an affordable, reliable and sustainable domestic energy supply. However; the existing power sector epitome does not allow meeting those objectives simultaneously because achieving any of them entails deviation from the other two, thus; energy trilemma arises. The traditional solution to this challenge has always been trade off among the objectives. A better solution, however, lies in the shift from the traditional electricity sector operation and configuration to a new paradigm in which the smart grid and information technology play pivotal roles. The new arrangement will change the functionality of power industry in a way that is able to internalise the energy policy aims, hence; those competing objectives are no longer mutually exclusive. This paper analyses the role of smart grid in the new paradigm