Dear Colleagues,

The World is suffering from huge population growth and fast development, that in turn heavily depend on energy availability.

Nowadays, the energy mix is still mostly supported on fossil fuels, not only because the technology is well established, but mainly because it is readily available and highly controllable. However, the uneven distribution of fossil energy reserves and the unavoidable related emissions have driven researchers and decision makers towards increasing use of energy produced from renewable sources. The non-controllability characteristics of renewable energy, such as solar and wind, together with the expected reduction in installed thermoelectric capacity, and the location of such generation systems far from the consumption centers may cause problems in managing the electrical systems with a possible increase in grid congestion. The thermoelectric capacity will most probably be compensated with the use of distributed generation, thus making the electrical systems insufficiently prepared and therefore requiring investments. It will be mandatory to implement digital technologies in smart grids. In this new model, the provision of ancillary services to the Transmission System Operator (TSO) or Distribution System Operator (DSO) should take into account the possible flexibility furnished by new distributed resources including demand response, dispersed and small generators, also based on Renewable Energy Sources (RESs) and frequently endowed with energy storage systems. Moreover, new frameworks should be designed to manage the interaction between aggregators and system operators, to make clean and sustainable energy constantly available to consumers.

This Special Issue welcomes original and innovative contributions addressing the challenges of clean energy systems, both from the point of view of production and distribution, how to guarantee its availability, affordability and its efficient use. Topics include but are not limited to blue hydrogen; business models for energy production, distribution, and supply; carbon and water footprint of energy systems; efficient energy usage; energy communitites; energy decarbonization; energy-efficient buildings; energy management; energy markets; energy policy; energy storage; green hydrogen; integration of electric vehicles; LCA of energy systems; renewable energy; smart energy systems.

Prof. Dr. Nídia Caetano
Prof. Dr. Xiaolin Wang
Prof. Dr. Eugen Rusu
Prof. Dr. Pierluigi Siano
Guest Editors

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• smart grid architectures
• electric vehicles and vehicle-to-grid
• renewable energy grid
• energy-efficient technologies
• new energy materials and devices
• energy storage and distributed energy resources
• power electronics