With a growing number of ways to harvest electrical energy from cleaner sources, which can highly depend on the geographical locations, we now face the problem of how to distribute these different types of energies while minimizing waste. In other words, when our southwest neighbors have excess electricity generated from wind or solar power, it would be a waste not to transmit the excess to another region that could use that power. Hence the term "smart grid."
The development of smart grids has faced several challenges, but many research teams have attempted to overcome these challenges. A recent article in The Technology Review provides a report on some recent development at this front.