Guest editorial: Smart grid communications

As the society increasingly emphasizes the need of clean and renewable energy systems, the electric power industry is undergoing profound changes to transform a passive, hierarchical grid into an active and open-access smart grid. Enabled by advances in sensing, communication, and actuation, future smart grids offer much broader opportunities for cross-fertilization between the traditional power engineering community and the communication community. This special issue presents a glimpse of what is possible under this historical transition.