Unlocking the Societal Potential of Smart Grid Technologies: A Multi-Dimensional Analysis

Smart Grid is a transformation of the classical electricity grid incorporating and leveraging digital technologies. Smart grid is a bundle of technologies directed towards addressing the challenges that the classical grid faces today due to change in the ecosystem that the electrical grid operates in. This paper looks at those technologies, and Smart Grid as a whole, from the social lens. In this paper, we try to use some popular management frameworks that were originally designed to create business cases for new developments, and adapt them as tools to address this. We discuss and address the aspects that the Smart Grid is not just a technological intervention for technology’s sake, but has real tangible benefits for all stakeholders. This paper identifies various stakeholders in the entire value chain and tries to look at all technologies from each of their lenses. We perform a multi-dimensional analysis from Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental and Legal points of view (PESTEL) analysis, and then adapt the Value Proposition Canvas to address these aspects from all stakeholder perspectives. Keywords: Smart Grid, Energy Storage, Renewable Energy, Advanced Metering Infrastructure, Policy and Regulation, UN SDG 7.