• Energy Research

This Special Issue was intended to consolidate the most recent advances in the field of power electronics for renewable energy sources and electric drives [...]

In the past decade, inverter-integrated energy sources have experienced rapid growth, which leads to operating challenges associated with reduced system inertia and intermittent power generation, which can cause instability and performance issues of the power system. Improved control schemes for inverters are necessary to ensure the stability and resilience of the power system. Grid-forming inverters dampen frequency fluctuations in the power system, while grid-following inverters can aggravate frequency problems with increased penetration. This paper aims at reviewing the role of grid-forming inverters in the power system, including their topology, control strategies, challenges, sizing, and location. In order to facilitate continued research in this field, a comprehensive literature review and classification of the studies are conducted, followed by research gaps and suggestions for future studies.

As the world transitions to renewable electrification to reduce CO2 emissions, remote island electrification remains a challenge. Although some islands are connected to the grid, many still rely on fossil fuels for electricity generation. Several studies indicate that renewable energy sources, such as wave energy, have the potential to make these islands self-reliant because of their substantial power potential. However, research on the control of power electronics converters for these systems remains limited. This paper proposes isolated grid-forming control for island electrification to address this gap using a wave energy converter and an energy storage system. Resistive loading control is implemented to optimize the power absorption of the generator. The result illustrates the establishment of the required AC voltage and 50 Hz frequency in the island load, ensuring harmonics compliance with the recommended standards. Experiments were conducted to test and validate the operation of different converter controls. The results also demonstrate the converter’s ability to black-start the island load and automatically transition the load current with varying loads in a few milliseconds. Furthermore, the power quality produced by the wave energy converter presents one of its significant challenges. Therefore, the performance of two distinct converter technologies was compared. The performance of the IGBT converter was evaluated against that of the SiC-based converter in terms of power quality. The study demonstrates that the use of SiC enhances power quality in all switching frequencies tested, achieving the most significant reduction of 78% in current THD and 92% in voltage THD at the 25 kHz switching frequency, thus validating its advantages for wave energy converter applications.

Wave energy converters (WECs), which are designed to harvest ocean wave energy, have recently been improved by the installation of numerous conversion mechanisms; however, it is still difficult to find an appropriate method that can compromise between strong environmental impact and robust performance by transforming irregular wave energy into stable electrical power. To solve this problem, an investigation into the impact of varied wave conditions on the dynamics of WECs and to determine an optimal factor for WECs to comply with long-term impacts was performed. In this work, we researched the performance of WECs influenced by wave climates. We used a permanent magnet linear generator (PMLG)-based WEC that was invented at Uppsala University. The damping effect was first studied with a PMLG-type WEC. Then, a group of sea states was selected to investigate their impact on the power production of the WEC. Two research sites were chosen to investigate the WEC’s annual energy production as well as a study on the optimal damping coefficient impact. In addition, we compared the WEC’s energy production between optimal damping and constant damping under a full range of sea states at both sites. Our results show that there is an optimal damping coefficient that can achieve the WEC’s maximum power output. For the chosen research sites, only a few optimal damping coefficients were able to contribute over 90% of the WEC’s annual energy production. In light of the comparison between optimal and constant damping, we conclude that, for specific regions, constant damping might be a better choice for WECs to optimize long-term energy production.