Introduction

With the deregulation of the power industry having occurred in many countries across the world, the industry has been experiencing many changes leading to increasing complexity, interconnectivity, and uncertainties. Demand for electricity has also increased significantly in many countries, which resulted in increasingly stressed power systems. The insufficient investment in the infrastructure for reliable electricity supply had been regarded as a key factor leading to several major blackouts in North America and Europe in 2003. More recently, the initiative toward development of the smart grid again introduced many additional new challenges and uncertainties to the power industry. In this chapter, a general overview will be given starting from deregulation, covering electricity markets, present uncertainties, load modeling, situational awareness, and control issues. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.