This concise overview covers decentralised self-organising units in smart grids. These will help keep future smart grids operational in the face of numbers of distributed intermittent generators and loads overwhelming traditional IT. Applications include economic dispatch, voltage control, and quality monitoring.

Alfredo Vaccaro is a full professor at the Department of Engineering of the University of Sannio, Italy, where he is the chair of the Power System Research Group, and dean of the Bachelor of Science and Master Science in Energy Engineering. He is the chair of the IEEE Power System Operation, Planning and Economics Committee - Technologies and Innovation Subcommittee (PSOPE-T&I), editor-in-chief of Smart Grids and Sustainable Energy published by Springer Nature, and associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Power Systems and IEEE Transactions on Smart Grids.