Grid Resilience, Modernization, and the Interplay of Distributed Energy Resources Towards Sustainability

Dear Colleagues,

This special issue on "Grid Resilience, Modernization, and the Interplay of Distributed Energy Resources Towards Sustainability" is to rethink the ways in which we generate, deliver, and consume electricity in light of the unpredictable climate volatility, aging infrastructure, and the continually rising power demand. Ensuring stable power, facilitating speedy recovery from power outages, and opening up new prospects for clean energy technologies for sustainable development are the goals of this Sustainability issue.

This special issue invites innovative research and practice-oriented articles on how digital technologies, improved controls, and distributed energy resources (DERs) might be coordinated to produce resilient, flexible, low-carbon power systems. The special issue focuses on real-world deployments and high-fidelity simulations. This special issue invites contributions to explore technical, economic, and social aspects of improving electric-power networks via digitalization and DER integration. The topics include but are not limited to:  (1) Distributed Energy Resources (DER): Rooftop solar, storage, electric vehicles, demand-response, and small gas turbines that can be aggregated to provide peak shaving, auxiliary services, and resilience; (2) Digital Twin and AI‐Driven Operations: real time monitoring, self-healing control loops, autonomous optimization and “what if” planning, (3) Resilience Frameworks: Automated fault detection, isolation, and restoration techniques and strategies, (4) Blockchain and Cybersecurity: blockchain-enabled transactive energy, and zero-trust cybersecurity for heterogeneous grid assets, and (5) Economic and Sustainability Impacts: Cost-benefit analyses, life-cycle carbon accounting, equity assessments, and policy frameworks that ensure the equitable deployment of resilient, low-carbon energy solutions.

The purpose of this issue is to combine theoretical analysis, modeling and simulation investigations, experimental case studies, and policy insights to learn how digitalization and DERs may boost grid resilience and sustainability, highlight real-world self-healing, and best practices for low-carbon power system deployment. The goal is to inform decision-makers—utilities, regulators, technology providers—on equitable and scalable clean-energy transition strategies and foster collaboration across academia, industry, and government to accelerate the design, validation, and rollout of next-generation energy infrastructures. The high-impact contributions from this issue will strengthen, upgrade, and sustain electric grids.

Prof. Dr. Chaouki Ghenai
Dr. Oussama Rejeb
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-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.