During the last decade rapidly increasing interest has been shown in the research, development, testing and implementation of a wide scope of activities related to power systems changes. These are mostly serious activities based on the assumption that analogy between power systems and information and communication technology is fully valid. The approach could be beneficial to a certain extent; however, if a number of crucial differences and facts are not taken into consideration, it is possible that most of the promises for the improved, commonly called “smart”, grid will remain wishful thinking. Regarding the importance of the issues at stake, and the significant resources mobilized, it seems reasonable to measure and balance this change. Practical examples are showing that the whole effort is potentially more costly than predicted, and without the expected benefits. Therefore, it seems that the work on finding proper criteria, measurements, simulations, and optimizations of power systems’ speed and depth of change must have priority before wider implementation is commenced. This paper emphasizes the importance of a more critical and analytically based approach to decide on how fast and to what extent the improvement of power systems could be achieved with smart grid transformation.
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