The electricity power system is shifting from a high reliance on centralized large power plants towards a system in which distributed generation units, like solar panels, are penetrating into the lower parts of the power grid. As a result, the consumers are becoming active prosumers who in addition to consuming can also autonomously generate, store, import or export power. Secondly, the introduction of new electronic devices, such as: electrical vehicles and heat pumps resulting in increased energy demand. The capacity of the current energy grid is insufficient to facilitate the future needs. To solve this problem without constructing a complete new power grid the smart grid is devised. A smart grid is able to use the assets of the legacy power grid in a more efficient way; in order to facilitate the future power needs without installing a complete new grid. The “smart” in “smart grid” heavily relies on the use of telecommunication and ICT. A smart energy grid holds the promise of increased reliability, since there is no longer one single point of failure, increased energy sustainability, through the use of different types of environmentally friendly energy sources, and an increased efficiency, due to less loss in transporting energy over large distances. However, the smart grid, with its intermittent distributed energy sources also presents various challenges. Firstly, the traditional grid topology is designed for uni-directional top-down power flow, which might not be able to optimally include local bi-directional power exchange. Specifically, the low-voltage and the medium-voltage network segments, where most of the local power exchanges is going to take place, needs to be updated. Secondly, the intermittent production behaviour of the distributed sources as well as the autonomy of the prosumers to manage their own energy demand likely lead to different (and possibly more volatile) load profiles. Control of the resources in a smart grid is therefore important. To build and control a smart grid, a large network of smart devices must be created, these smart devices must be able to communicate with each other. Since smart grids are not commonly in use, and still much under development, acquiring data on the actual telecommunications requirements is an utopia. Nonetheless, since ICT forms a crucial element of a smart grid, the aim of this research is to estimate which parts of a smart grid would have the biggest telecommunications demands. Subsequently, based on our knowledge of the Dutch energy grid of Alliander and various simulations, we take a cautious step at guestimating the actual telecommunications need in the foreseeable future of the smart grid. We take a bottom-up approach starting at the end nodes in the low-voltage energy grid.