Sustainable Power Systems and Microgrids: Planning, Operation, and Optimization

Dear Colleagues,

The global transition toward low-carbon and resilient energy systems is accelerating the integration of renewable energy sources, distributed energy resources, energy storage, electric vehicles, and flexible loads into modern power networks. While these technologies offer significant opportunities to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and improve energy efficiency, their increasing penetration also introduces challenges related to intermittency, uncertainty, power quality, system stability, reliability and flexibility. Microgrids and other decentralized energy architectures have emerged as promising solutions for integrating diverse energy resources while enhancing the resilience and sustainability of electricity systems.

At the same time, advances in optimization, artificial intelligence, digitalization, advanced control, and energy management are creating new opportunities for improving the planning and operation of sustainable power systems. Coordinating renewable generation, storage, demand response, and grid interaction requires sophisticated methodologies capable of addressing technical,  environmental, and operational objectives simultaneously. Research that bridges theoretical developments with practical applications is therefore essential for supporting the transition toward intelligent, flexible, and sustainable energy infrastructure.

This Special Issue aims to present and disseminate recent advances in the planning, operation, control, and optimization of sustainable power systems and microgrids. We invite original research articles, reviews, and methodological contributions addressing emerging technologies, analytical approaches, computational methods, and practical applications that improve the efficiency, reliability, resilience, and sustainability of modern power systems.

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

• Sustainable power system and microgrid planning, design, and sizing.
• Renewable energy integration and distributed energy resources.
• Energy storage systems and optimal storage management.
• Microgrid energy management and coordinated operation.
• Optimal power flow, economic dispatch, and unit commitment.
• Multi-objective, stochastic, robust, and uncertainty-aware optimization.
• Demand response, flexible loads, and sector coupling.
• Grid-connected and islanded microgrid operation and control.
• Power system resilience, reliability, stability, and power quality.
• Electric vehicles and vehicle-to-grid applications.
• Artificial intelligence and machine learning for power system optimization.
• Advanced control, forecasting, and digital technologies for intelligent microgrids.

The Special Issue welcomes contributions that provide significant theoretical, computational, experimental, or practical insights and contribute to the development of cleaner, smarter and more resilient power systems.

Dr. Khalil Gholami
Dr. Md Enamul Haque
Dr. Mohammad Taufiqul Arif
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. Processes 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 2400 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.

• sustainable power systems
• microgrids
• renewable energy integration
• distributed energy resources
• energy storage systems
• energy management systems
• power system optimization
• optimal power flow
• economic dispatch
• multi-objective optimization
• smart grids
• demand response
• microgrid control
• power system resilience
• artificial intelligence
• machine learning
• electric vehicles
• energy efficiency
• renewable energy
• low-carbon energy systems