George Koutitas and Stan McClellan take the reader through the evolution of the power grid, from its classical role as a utility or service provider to its new role as an application development platform. The book explores how new technologies are currently creating a cleaner and more sustainable ecosystem for new business models to prosper, and how the grid intelligence and energy production migrate to the edge of the network.The new smart grid is becoming a distributed system that supports decentralized services through modern trends and system architectures. The authors demonstrate the orchestration of these technologies as they transform the utility sector toward a more human-centric grid, and the active role consumers play in providing critical data for the industry. Readers will gain insight into their role in the utility sector, as well as problems, solutions and risks related to the development of the smart grid model.