Rising concerns about the efficiency, reliability, economics, and sustainability in electricity production and distribution have been driving an evolution of the traditional electric power grid toward smart grid. A key enabler of the smart grid is the two-way communications throughout the power system, based on which an advanced information system can make optimal decisions on power system operation. Due to the expected deep penetration of renewable energy sources, energy storage devices, demand side management (DSM) tools, and electric vehicles (EVs) in the future smart grid, there exist significant technical challenges on power system planning and operation. Specifically, efficient stochastic information management schemes should be developed to address the randomness in renewable power generation, buffering effect of energy storage devices, consumer behavior patterns in the context of DSM, and high mobility of EVs. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive literature survey on the stochastic information management schemes for the smart grid. We start this survey with an introduction to the smart grid system architecture and the technical challenges in information management. Various component-level modeling techniques are presented to characterize the sources of randomness in the smart grid. Built upon the component-level models, we further explore the system-level stochastic information management schemes for smart grid planning and operation. Future research directions and open research issues are identified.

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