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The Application of Power Electronics Technology in Power and Energy Systems

A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "F3: Power Electronics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 5 December 2026 | Viewed by 1270

Editors


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Guest Editor
State Key Lab of Intelligent Power Distribution Equipment and System, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin 300130, China
Interests: artificial intelligence; power electronic; DC converters; power electronic transformers; wireless charging technology; piezoelectric devices; electric drives
Department of Wind and Energy Systems, Technical University of Denmark, Anker Engelunds Vej 101, 2800 Kongens Lyngby, Denmark
Interests: power conversion; renewable energy integration and optimal operation; energy storage systems; offshore energy hubs; Power-to-X

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The accelerating global energy transition is driving the emergence of highly electrified and digitally integrated power infrastructures, fundamentally reshaping power and energy systems worldwide. In this evolving landscape, power electronics has become a pivotal enabling technology, forming the essential interface between renewable generation, modern grids, electrified transportation, industrial processes, and advanced energy storage solutions. As energy systems move toward architectures dominated by converter-based resources, new opportunities for efficiency, controllability, and flexibility emerge, together with multifaceted technical challenges spanning device physics, converter design, dynamic stability, and system-level coordination.

The rapid advances in semiconductor devices, converter architectures, control strategies, and system-integration methodologies are making power electronic systems more efficient, compact, and intelligent, while also elevating expectations for operational stability, resilience, and reliability. At the same time, the growing penetration of converter-based resources in power networks has introduced new technical challenges, including multi-timescale dynamic interactions, weak-grid instability, and the need for sophisticated modelling, protection, and coordination strategies across system layers.

 This Special Issue aims to present and disseminate the latest advances in device technologies, converter designs, modelling and control methods, system-level analysis, and emerging applications that shape the future of power-electronics-based energy systems.

Topics of interest for publication include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • All aspects of energy conversion and management for renewable, storage, hydrogen, industrial, transportation, and other electrification systems, etc.
  • Converter technologies for renewable energy integration, including utility-scale PV and onshore/offshore wind, etc.
  • AC, DC, and hybrid AC/DC microgrids for distributed and high-renewable-penetration applications, etc.
  • Solid-state transformer (SST)-enabled architectures and multi-terminal power-electronics-based grids, etc.
  • Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) and Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) interfaces and their roles in grid flexibility and ancillary services, etc.
  • Power conversion and control for energy storage systems, including BESS, supercapacitors, flywheels, hybrid storage, etc.
  • Power electronics for Power-to-X (PtX) pathways, including electrolyzers, fuel cells, and multi-energy coupling, etc.
  • Converter technologies for data centers, high-performance computing, and electricity-intensive infrastructures, etc.
  • Industrial electrification and flexibility, including power electronics for drives, robotics, adaptive industrial loads, etc.
  • Converter interaction mechanisms, multi-timescale dynamics, and advanced modelling of PE-dominated systems, etc.
  • Grid-support functionalities and resilience enhancement provided by power electronic converters, etc.
  • Fault ride-through, system recovery, and black-start capabilities enabled by advanced converter technologies, etc.
  • AI- and data-driven methods for design automation, adaptive control, monitoring, predictive diagnostics, etc.
  • Coordinated control, optimization, and energy management of multi-energy and multi-converter systems, etc.

Prof. Dr. Zhe Zhang
Dr. Chao Liu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • power electronics
  • high-power-density converters
  • utility-scale renewable integration
  • distributed renewable energy systems
  • AC/DC and hybrid microgrids
  • solid-state transformers (SSTs)
  • vehicle-to-grid (V2G)/vehicle-to-everything (V2X)
  • energy storage systems (BESS, supercapacitors, flywheels)
  • Power-to-X (PtX), electrolyzers, fuel cells
  • data center power conversion
  • industrial electrification and flexibility
  • converter interaction and multi-timescale dynamics
  • grid-support functionalities and resilience enhancement
  • fault ride-through, system recovery, and black start
  • AI- and data-driven
  • digital twins
  • coordinated control and energy management
  • multi-energy systems
  • power-electronics-dominated grids

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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19 pages, 3640 KB  
Article
Novel Resonant DC Breaker with Capacitor Self-Charging by Controllable Injection Energy and Internal Overvoltage Suppression
by Yumin Zhang, Xingning Han, Weijie Wen, Bin Li and Zhicheng Zhang
Energies 2026, 19(15), 3477; https://doi.org/10.3390/en19153477 - 23 Jul 2026
Viewed by 158
Abstract
With the rapid development of DC grids, resonant DC circuit breakers (RDCBs) have become critical for fault isolation. However, existing RDCBs often suffer from severe energy mismatches, and components, including mechanical switches, resonant capacitors, and power electronic devices, suffer from excessive internal overvoltage [...] Read more.
With the rapid development of DC grids, resonant DC circuit breakers (RDCBs) have become critical for fault isolation. However, existing RDCBs often suffer from severe energy mismatches, and components, including mechanical switches, resonant capacitors, and power electronic devices, suffer from excessive internal overvoltage during the current interruption process. To address these issues, a novel RDCB with a capacitor self-charging current excitation source (CES) is proposed in this paper. First, by controlling the charging process of CES by the fault current, the injected energy is matched with the commutation requirements, significantly reducing the transient recovery voltage (TRV) applied to the mechanical switch. Second, to suppress the voltage applied to the resonant capacitor, a metal oxide arrestor (MOA) should be connected directly in parallel with the resonant capacitor, avoiding overvoltage caused by the internal oscillation between the resonant inductance and the resonant capacitor. Furthermore, an anti-parallel magnetic core is designed for CES, ensuring dynamic current sharing among parallel IGBTs while maintaining a zero-inductance characteristic externally. Simulation results verify that the proposed RDCB reduces the peak TRV by at least 64% compared with existing RDCBs. Furthermore, the effectiveness of the proposed overvoltage suppression methods is validated, significantly improving the interrupting reliability. Full article
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Review

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27 pages, 1765 KB  
Review
MPPT Control Strategies for Grid-Connected Photovoltaic Systems: A Comparative Review Based on Key Parameters
by Kifayat Ullah, Ahmed Bilal Awan, Muhammad Ishaq and Arsalan Muhammad Soomar
Energies 2026, 19(12), 2866; https://doi.org/10.3390/en19122866 - 17 Jun 2026
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 580
Abstract
Maximum power point tracking (MPPT) is essential for improving the energy harvesting performance of grid-connected photovoltaic systems under varying operating conditions. However, the growing diversity of MPPT algorithms has made the selection of suitable control strategies increasingly challenging for researchers. This review presents [...] Read more.
Maximum power point tracking (MPPT) is essential for improving the energy harvesting performance of grid-connected photovoltaic systems under varying operating conditions. However, the growing diversity of MPPT algorithms has made the selection of suitable control strategies increasingly challenging for researchers. This review presents a comprehensive analysis of MPPT techniques for grid-connected photovoltaic systems, with particular emphasis on dynamic environmental variations, partial shading conditions, and grid-interfacing requirements. The study systematically classifies and evaluates conventional methods, intelligent control approaches, and bio-inspired optimization techniques. In contrast to earlier review articles that mainly emphasize traditional methods such as Perturb and Observe and Incremental Conductance, this work focuses on two distinctive aspects: the comparative literature compilation of modern artificial intelligence and metaheuristic-based MPPT algorithms; and the inclusion of power quality considerations in MPPT performance evaluation. Quantitative assessment metrics derived from various experimental conditions are aggregated to provide a broader comparison of control strategies. In addition, the impact of MPPT methods on power quality parameters, particularly total harmonic distortion and power factor, is examined. The review further summarizes recent advances in metaheuristic optimization for challenging operating scenarios and identifies key research gaps. Finally, practical guidelines are provided for selecting and developing MPPT strategies for residential, commercial, and utility-scale photovoltaic applications, with particular attention to sensorless and grid-aware control solutions for future power networks. Full article
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