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Renewable Energy Sources: A Solution in the Operation of Smart Grids and Sustainable Energy Systems

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Engineering and Science".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 February 2024) | Viewed by 9857

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Seyed Masoud Mohseni-Bonab

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Guest Editor

1. Digital Systems Department, Hydro-Québec/IREQ, Varennes, QC, Canada
2. Electrical Engineering Department, Université Laval, Québec City, QC, Canada
Interests: electrical power system planning and operation studies; security and economy of smart grids considering renewable energies
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Ali Moeini

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Power System Simulation and Evolution Department, Hydro-Québec/IREQ, Varennes, QC, Canada
Interests: interconnected power systems economics and planning; power system stability and control; energy storage; renewable energy resources

Dr. Ali Hajebrahimi

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Guest Editor

Simulation and Evolution of Electricity Grid, Hydro-Québec/IREQ, Varennes, QC, Canada
Interests: electrical power system planning and operation studies; security and economy of smart grids considering renewable energies; optimization; real-time simulation

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

It is our pleasure to announce a new Special Issue, “Renewable Energy Sources: A Solution in the Operation of Smart Grids and Sustainable Energy Systems”, of the journal Sustainability.

In the context of severe concerns about the growing environmental pollution produced by thermal power plants, smart grid (SGs) technology enables the effective management and distribution of renewable energy sources (RESs) such as solar, wind, and hydrogen. Nowadays, RESs are becoming more cost-effective solutions compared with electricity generated from fossil fuels. The integration of RESs into power systems, especially distribution systems and SGs, has some benefits, e.g., reducing energy losses and improving system reliability; however, interconnecting high penetration levels of RESs into distribution and transmission grids poses considerable challenges to the planning and operation of power systems. These challenges are mainly due to the intermittency of the output power of RESs. Another challenge is that distribution systems were mainly designed under classical paradigms with no generation units installed in medium- and low-voltage distribution networks. Thus, adding substantial renewable-based distributed generation (DG) affects the principles for which the existing distribution system was designed, e.g., causing reverse power flow that forces significant reconfigurations of power system devices and management schemes. Energy storage systems (ESSs) comprise a promising technology that can mitigate some of these challenges; however, ESS is an expensive technology. Therefore, for this specific solution (i.e., ESS), finding the optimal size and location of ESS is necessary to direct investments toward other priority areas.

This Special Issue aims to provide an optimal solution to expansion of renewable energies and SGs technologies considering the planning and operation aspects. It also focuses on dealing with the imposed uncertainties associated with renewable energies in operation and real-time problems. Thus, scholars and researchers are kindly invited to consider submitting their original articles for consideration in this Special Issue to accelerate the existing practices in smart grids and sustainable energy systems. This Special Issue is welcomes submissions in, but not limited to, the following subjects:

Proposing new ideas on increasing the penetration levels of RESs;
Activating large-scale RES-based loads in the power market mechanisms;
Resilient integration of RESs into power systems and smart grids;
Maximizing the utilization rate of installed capacity of RESs in planning and control strategies;
Achieving net-zero carbon emissions and reliable power generation via RESs;
Enabling RES capabilities in power system dynamics studies;
Harmonic analysis of RES-dependant smart grids;

This Special Issue invites the submission of cross-disciplinary and empirical studies regarding smart grids and sustainable societies from the fields of economics, business strategies, innovations, environmental impact studies, engineering, public policy, sustainability and consumer research. Since the smart grid and its impacts on sustainable energy transition manifest differently in different countries and on different continents, a wide range of contributions are invited from all over the globe.

Dr. Seyed Masoud Mohseni-Bonab
Dr. Ali Moeini
Dr. Ali Hajebrahimi
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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability 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.

Keywords

renewable energy sources (RESs)
smart grid
demand response
sustainable societies
electricity pricing
market mechanisms
environmental impact
power system dynamics and control
power system planning

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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17 pages, 4163 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Effects of Non-Uniformly-Aged Photovoltaic Array on Mismatch Power Loss: A Practical Investigation towards Novel Hybrid Array Configurations

by Ahmed Al Mansur, Md. Ruhul Amin, Molla Shahadat Hossain Lipu, Md. Imamul Islam, Ratil H. Ashique, Zubaeer Bin Shams, Mohammad Asif ul Haq, Md. Hasan Maruf and ASM Shihavuddin

Sustainability 2023, 15(17), 13153; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151713153 - 1 Sep 2023

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1301

Abstract

One of the most important causes of a reduction in power generation in PV panels is the non-uniform aging of photovoltaic (PV) modules. The increase in the current–voltage (I–V) mismatch among the array modules is the primary cause of this kind of degradation. There have been several array configurations investigated over the years to reduce mismatch power loss (MPL) caused by shadowing, but there have not been any experimental studies that have specifically examined the impact of various hybrid array topologies taking PV module aging into consideration. This research examines the influence of the non-uniform aging scenario on the performance of solar PV modules with various interconnection strategies. Experiments have been carried out on a 4 × 10, 400 W array with 12 possible configurations, including three proposed configurations (LD-TCT, SP-LD, and LD-SP), to detect the electrical characteristics of a PV system. Finally, the performances of different module configurations are analyzed where the newly proposed configurations (SP-LD and LD-SP) show 15.80% and 15.94% higher recoverable energy (RE), respectively, than the most-adopted configuration (SP). Moreover, among the twelve configurations, the SP configuration shows the highest percentage of MPL, which is about 17.96%, whereas LD-SP shows the lowest MPL at about 4.88%. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Renewable Energy Sources: A Solution in the Operation of Smart Grids and Sustainable Energy Systems)

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23 pages, 4780 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Demand Response Management of a Residential Microgrid Using Chaotic Aquila Optimization

by Sushmita Kujur, Hari Mohan Dubey and Surender Reddy Salkuti

Sustainability 2023, 15(2), 1484; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15021484 - 12 Jan 2023

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 1299

Abstract

In this paper, Chaotic Aquila Optimization has been proposed for the solution of the demand response program of a grid-connected residential microgrid (GCRMG) system. Here, the main objective is to optimize the scheduling pattern of connected appliances of the building such that overall user cost are minimized under the dynamic price rate of electricity. The GCRMG model considered for analysis is equipped with a fuel cell, combined heat and power (CHP), and a battery storage system. It has to control and schedule the thermostatically controlled deferrable and interruptible appliances of the building optimally. A multipowered residential microgrid system with distinct load demand for appliances and dynamic electricity price makes the objective function complex and highly constrained in nature, which is difficult to solve efficiently. For the solution of such a complex highly constrained optimization problem, both Chaotic Aquila Optimization (CAO) and Aquila optimization (AO) algorithms are implemented, and their performance is analyzed separately. Obtained simulation results in terms of optimal load scheduling and corresponding user cost reveal the better searching and constrained handling capability of AO. In addition, experimental results show that a sinusoidal map significantly improves the performances of AO. Comparison of results with other reported methods are also made, which supports the claim of superiority of the proposed approach. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Renewable Energy Sources: A Solution in the Operation of Smart Grids and Sustainable Energy Systems)

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22 pages, 3674 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Optimal Design of Electric Vehicle Fast-Charging Station’s Structure Using Metaheuristic Algorithms

by Phiraphat Antarasee, Suttichai Premrudeepreechacharn, Apirat Siritaratiwat and Sirote Khunkitti

Sustainability 2023, 15(1), 771; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15010771 - 31 Dec 2022

Cited by 17 | Viewed by 2773

Abstract

The fast development of electric vehicles (EVs) has resulted in several topics of research in this area, such as the development of a charging pricing strategy, charging control, location of the charging station, and the structure within the charging station. This paper proposes the optimal design of the structure of an EV fast-charging station (EVFCS) connected with a renewable energy source and battery energy storage systems (BESS) by using metaheuristic algorithms. The optimal design of this structure aims to find the number and power of chargers. Moreover, the renewable energy source and BESS can reduce the impact on the grid, so these energy sources are considered as ones of the optimally-designed structure of EVFCS in this work. Thus, it is necessary to determine the optimal sizing of the renewable energy source, BESS, and the grid power connected to EVFCS. This optimal structure can improve the profitability of the station. To solve the optimization problem, three metaheuristic algorithms, including particle swarm optimization (PSO), Salp swarm algorithm (SSA), and arithmetic optimization algorithm (AOA), are adopted. These algorithms aim to find the optimal structure which maximizes the profit of the EVFCS determined by its net present value (NPV), and the results obtained from these algorithms were compared. The results demonstrate that all considered algorithms could find the feasible solutions of the optimal design of the EVFCS structure where PSO provided the best NPV, followed by AOA and SSA. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Renewable Energy Sources: A Solution in the Operation of Smart Grids and Sustainable Energy Systems)

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22 pages, 3899 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Optimal Allocation of Fast Charging Station for Integrated Electric-Transportation System Using Multi-Objective Approach

by Ajit Kumar Mohanty, Perli Suresh Babu and Surender Reddy Salkuti

Sustainability 2022, 14(22), 14731; https://doi.org/10.3390/su142214731 - 8 Nov 2022

Cited by 12 | Viewed by 1458

Abstract

The usage of Electric Vehicles (EVs) for transportation is expected to continue growing, which opens up new possibilities for creating new smart grids. It offers a large-scale penetration of Fast Charging Stations (FCE) in a local utility network. A severe voltage fluctuation and increased active power loss might result from the inappropriate placement of the FCE as it penetrates the Distribution System (DST). This paper proposes a multi-objective optimisation for the simultaneous optimal allocation of FCEs, Distributed Generators (DGs), and Shunted Capacitors (SCs). The proposed Pareto dominance-based hybrid methodology incorporates the advantages of the Grey Wolf Optimiser and Particle Swarm Optimisation algorithm to minimise the objectives on 118 bus radial distribution systems. The proposed method outperforms some other existing algorithms in terms of minimising (a) active power loss costs of the distribution system, (b) voltage deviations, (c) FCE development costs, (d) EV energy consumption costs, and (e) DG costs, as well as satisfying the number of FCEs and EVs in all zones based on transportation and the electrical network. The simulation results demonstrate that the simultaneous deployment technique yields better outcomes, such as the active power loss costs of the distribution system being reduced to 53.21%, voltage deviations being reduced to 68.99%, FCE development costs being reduced to 22.56%, EV energy consumption costs being reduced to 19.8%, and DG costs being reduced to 5.1%. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Renewable Energy Sources: A Solution in the Operation of Smart Grids and Sustainable Energy Systems)

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Review

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26 pages, 2460 KiB

Open AccessReview

Energy Business Initiatives for Grid-Connected Solar Photovoltaic Systems: An Overview

by Nicholas Mukisa, Ramon Zamora and Tek Tjing Lie

Sustainability 2022, 14(22), 15060; https://doi.org/10.3390/su142215060 - 14 Nov 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1781

Abstract

An overview of the adoption extent of the energy business models around the world was undertaken by considering both the developed and developing countries, with the emphasis on the customer-side renewable energy business models. The developed countries have widely adopted energy business initiatives to advance the distributed generation of electricity from renewable energy sources, while developing countries are struggling and/or have failed to record significant success. Additionally, developing countries are shifting from customer-owned energy business initiatives to the community-shared energy business initiatives to enhance prosumer-generated energy self-consumption. Furthermore, the existent billing schemes as well as the store-on grid scheme applicable to the energy business initiatives are discussed in this paper. The virtual net metering scheme category is the main billing scheme used for the community-shared energy business initiatives. In addition, this study depicts how the store-on grid scheme addresses the shortfalls of the existent billing schemes. Finally, the study gives policy recommendations that the decision makers in the developing countries could use as a foundation to foster the solar PV technology deployment through energy business models, especially by the adoption of the store-on grid scheme as the billing scheme. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Renewable Energy Sources: A Solution in the Operation of Smart Grids and Sustainable Energy Systems)

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