Energy is the lifeblood of our economies, and its infrastructure critically affects all of our lives in virtually every activity. For every economy throughout history, one fact has held true: economic development requires energy. How we access, transfer and transform this energy into the useful work of heating, lighting and motion forms what we call an energy system, a set of interrelated elements from the capturing of natural resources to processing and refining to transportation and distribution and finally to consumption. Energy systems, however, are not simply about technology. They are multidimensional, involving natural resources, technology processes, and economic and social institutions. All of these variables interact to produce the outcome of an energy system.

Our energy system is in a profound state of transformation as it adapts and evolves to meet new demands and a changing context. To truly develop an effective and resilient energy system of the future will mean integration across the entire system. The next generation in energy systems that we see developing is greatly more distributed and nonlinear as information technology merges with new energy sources. The current architecture of our energy systems is linear in nature. Energy is generated or extracted from some large scale centralized source and then transported, processed and distributed in a somewhat linear process to the end user who consumes it. But with the rise of distributed technologies and the smart grid, this will change: as consumers become prosumers, information and energy will likewise flow in all directions.