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The electric power grid was developed on the architectural assumption of centralized generation being delivered to passive distributed loads irrespective of the cost implication (Schavemaker and Van der Sluis, Electrical power system essentials, Wiley, Chichester, Hoboken, 2008). However, several new energy-management change drivers have emerged to uproot this status quo.

Perhaps nowhere will the impact of the energy-management change drivers identified in Chap. be felt more than at the grid’s periphery. DG in the form of solar PV and small-scale wind will be joined by a plethora of internet-enabled appliances and devices to transform the grid’s periphery to one with two-way flows of power and information (Palensky and Dietrich, IEEE Trans Ind Inf, 7(3):381–388, 2011; Siano, Renew Sustain Energy Rev, 30:461–478, 2014). This transformation presents a daunting technical challenge. Not only are there tens of millions of devices at the leaves of the grid’s radial structure, these devices are relatively small and require new innovations in sensing, communication, control, and actuation.

The development of IoT within the energy infrastructure is best seen as a control loop. The control loop is composed of four functions: a physical process (such as the generation, transmission, or consumption of electricity), its measurement, decision making, and actuation.

The previous chapters have situated the development of eIoT within an ongoing transformation of the electric power grid. In response to several energy-management change drivers, the grid periphery will be activated with an eIoT composed of network-enabled physical devices, heterogeneous communication networks, and distributed control and decision-making algorithms that are organized by well-designed architectures and standards. When these factors are implemented together properly, they form an eIoT control loop that effectively manages the technical and economic performance of the grid. This control loop is most consonant with an emerging concept of transactive energy (TE).

In conclusion, the development of eIoT is an integral part of the transformation to the future electricity grid.