The term might look new but it has long been  in existance in various sectors such as politics/ administration/ economics. However its development related to Power sector is  poor.Currenty what is being attempted is only staistical which is suboptimal and is like the trail and error  scenario  we used to attempt till real control theory came into existance in Engineering.

Most man made systems are in the form of Pyramids in nature and so are Power systems.The Pyramids in Power system  has to interact with Pyramids in other systems at various levels which are mostly of three layer.Information has to travel in  the energy pyramid from top to bottom elements and then bottom to top.Maintaining this balance in a complex manner with other levels of other pyramids is the Smart Grid.

Now this can not be attained by statistics/ analytics alone. It requires Online simulation of status of parameters  , remodelling and rearranging  of networks and very highly and easy communication technologioes patterned like communiaction in any administrative set up with markers for priority etc, and a simulation of decidion making akin to human interface based on inputs from other pyramids at suitable level. And it must be very fast It must also be guarded against intrusion

The only communication technology that  can cater to this requirement is fiber optic links

All this also implies that Network elements have been built to cater to electrical loading and get  assigned parameters.

While work has been done on this control theory but no contriol theory of information is in fully developed phase.This is indicated in multilayerd communication technologioes and various analytics  now being touted for smart grid . Without addressing this part no smart grid will be possibile at reasonable cost