Next-generation Smart Grid subsystems such as distributed district energy systems are likely to play significantly more important role in delivering a sustainable energy future. Therefore, there is a need for developing domain-specific standards-compliant automation platform which will facilitate their integration into the Smart Grid environment in order to provide value-added features during their exploitation. In this paper, utilization and adaptation of well accepted industrial automation standards such as OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA) and IEC 61850 for developing optimized middleware platform which will enable optimized remote control of flexible distributed multi-generation (DMG) energy systems is proposed. The simulation models of DMG systems are developed and connected to the middleware platform prototype in order to investigate benefits of DMG coordinated automation and evaluate economic and environmental impacts enabled by DMG remote control. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.