IEEE JOURNAL OF EMERGING AND SELECTED TOPICS IN POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 4, NO. 1, MARCH 2016
T HE global electrical energy consumption is still increasing, which demands that the power capacity and power transmission capabilities must be more than double within 20 years. This is not only resulting from the rising electricity demand but also caused by an ever-increasing amount of electrification in the society. Electric power production has been changing from conventional fossil energy sources to renewable energy sources—in 2014, 60% of all installed production capacity came from renewables. The global shift to renewable-energy-based power generation brings in an unprecedented opportunity for the development of highly efficient and sustainable power electronics technology. As an enabling technology for a full control of electric power, power electronics are increasingly used for power generation, transmission/distribution, and various end-user applications.
Such a large-scale expansion of power electronics usage is changing the characteristic of the power system by introducing more highly nonlinear and time-delayed dynamic systems, therefore increasing the risk of instability and power quality problems in the future power systems.
The electric power grid of the future will mainly be a solid-state-based grid, like the example shown in Fig. 1.
The power electronics-based power systems are emerging into all kinds of electrical grids, such as wind and photovoltaic power plants infrastructure, microgrids (ac/dc), multiterminal dc transmission systems, and also railway electrification networks—the latter has existed for many years and the experience gained can be used to combat the transition in solid-state power grids. Power electronic converters have superior features of controllability, sustainability, and high efficiency, but also present stability challenges introducing severe disturbances into the gird. First, higher order harmonics (2–150 kHz) are being aggravated by highfrequency switching operation of converters, which may influence other devices or even trigger resonances. Second, the controllers of the converters may interact with each other and with system resonant conditions, leading to instability phenomena over a wide spectrum—improper design and use of PLL can also be critical. Third, the increasing use of high-order filters for converters, e.g., LC, LCL, and LCL
+
Trap filters, tends to introduce wideband resonance frequencies, which may make the overall system vulnerable to harmonic disturbances.
Hence, this Special Section is devoted to cover the latest developments of power electronics modeling, stability
Fig. 1.
Power electronics interfaced grid with electric power sources and loads—the solid-state power grid.
analysis, and control techniques at both converter and system levels. More specifically, harmonic modeling and analysis methodologies, including both steady-state harmonic emissions and dynamic interactions of multiple harmonic and/or interharmonic components, are included and expected to provide inspiration for the development of innovative solutions to address the instability, resonance, and power quality challenge in power-electronics-based power grids.
This Special Section received 39 papers and finally accepted
20 papers. It is organized into three groups of papers. They are: 1) converter issues (six papers); 2) stability and harmonic modeling (eight papers); and 3) mitigation and applications (six papers).
Special thanks is due to the Editor-in-Chief, Don Tan, for accepting this proposal, and also to the Guest Associate
Editors:
1) Paolo Mattavelli, University of Padova, Italy;
2) Jian Sun, RPI, USA;
3) Firuz Zare, Danfoss Power Electronics, Denmark;
4) Johan Enslin, UNC Charlotte, USA;
5) Axel Mertens, Leibniz University, Germany;
6) Xiongfei Wang, Aalborg University, Denmark;
7) Marco Liserre, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel,
Germany.
F REDE B LAABJERG ,
Aalborg University,
Institute of Energy Technology,
9100 Aalborg, Denmark
E-mail: fbl@et.aau.dk
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JESTPE.2015.2513558
2168-6777 © 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
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2 IEEE JOURNAL OF EMERGING AND SELECTED TOPICS IN POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 4, NO. 1, MARCH 2016
Frede Blaabjerg (S’86–M’88–SM’97–F’03) was with ABB-Scandia, Randers, Denmark, from
1987 to 1988. From 1988 to 1992, he was a Ph.D. Student with Aalborg University, Aalborg,
Denmark. He became an Assistant Professor in 1992, an Associate Professor in 1996, and a Full
Professor of Power Electronics and Drives in 1998. His current research interests include power electronics and its applications, such as in wind turbines, PV systems, reliability, harmonics, and adjustable speed drives.
Dr. Blaabjerg has received 17 IEEE Prize Paper Awards, the IEEE Power Electronics
Society (PELS) Distinguished Service Award in 2009, the EPE-PEMC Council Award in 2010, the IEEE William E. Newell Power Electronics Award in 2014, and the
Villum Kann Rasmussen Research Award in 2014. He was the Editor-in-Chief of the
IEEE T RANSACTIONS ON P OWER E LECTRONICS from 2006 to 2012. He was a Distinguished
Lecturer of the IEEE PELS from 2005 to 2007, and the IEEE Industry Applications Society from 2010 to 2011. He was nominated by Thomson Reuters in 2014 and 2015 to be between the most 250 cited researchers in engineering in the world. He is the Vice President for products in the IEEE PELS for 2015 to 2016.