Multiagent system solutions for distributed computing, communications, and data integration needs in the power industry

We identify three fundamental issues underlying many problems in power systems today: distributed computing, communications, and data integration. We review the characteristics of intelligent agents and multi-agent systems (MAS) technologies and argue that MAS offer a modular, extensible, flexible, and integrated approach to address all three of these issues and the problems resulting from them. The MAS design methodology is summarized, and an illustrative MAS application scenario in electric power systems is presented.