Dear Colleagues,

At present, sustainability is a key point in many research fields and domains. Rethinking policies, strategies, and developing new technology to keep the world growing at a fast pace in the different domains in a sustainable way is a challenging task. Power systems are no different, and in the last few years, new technologies have established a new paradigm to create and develop a future sustainable grid.

The European Union (EU) commission fixed a binding renewable energy target of at least 32% in the EU for 2030. As a consequence, huge investments have been made in renewable-based electricity generation plants and equipment in parallel with several smart grid initiatives to support this target achievement.

Power systems, namely at the distribution level, are facing new challenges to deal with the integration of intermittent renewable-based energy sources. Further, the expected mass penetration of electric vehicles will bring more complexity to the operation and planning tasks, but if properly undertaken, it can also allow unique opportunities. This Special Issue focuses on planning and operation of distribution power networks under smart grid paradigm where prosumers, electric vehicles, and other typical loads are usually connected. Topics of interest for publication include but are not limited to the following:

• Planning of smart grid considering uncertainty factors and/or multistage investments (e.g., renewable generation and electric vehicles growth in the mid-long term);
• Proposal for lowering grid operation cost and increasing the sustainability of smart grids (e.g., methods dealing with big data or smart metering to retrieve valuable information for grid operation);
• Renewable energy, demand-response, smart distribution grids;
• Energy management system in smart distribution grids;
• Advanced flexibility strategies for smart distribution grids;
• Electric vehicles planning and operation in smart grid (including behavior models for simulation and optimization of EVs in the grid).

Dr. João Soares
Dr. Bruno Canizes
Prof. Zita Vale