In recent years, due to the wide utilization of direct current (DC) power sources, such as solar photovoltaic (PV), fuel cells, different DC loads, high-level integration of different energy storage systems such as batteries, supercapacitors, DC microgrids have been gaining more importance. Furthermore, unlike conventional AC systems, DC microgrids do not have issues such as synchronization, harmonics, reactive power control, and frequency control. However, the incorporation of different distributed generators, such as PV, wind, fuel cell, loads, and energy storage devices in the common DC bus complicates the control of DC bus voltage as well as the power-sharing. In order to ensure the secure and safe operation of DC microgrids, different control techniques, such as centralized, decentralized, distributed, multilevel, and hierarchical control, are presented. The optimal planning of DC microgrids has an impact on operation and control algorithms; thus, coordination among them is required. A detailed review of the planning, operation, and control of DC microgrids is missing in the existing literature. Thus, this article documents developments in the planning, operation, and control of DC microgrids covered in research in the past 15 years. DC microgrid planning, operation, and control challenges and opportunities are discussed. Different planning, control, and operation methods are well documented with their advantages and disadvantages to provide an excellent foundation for industry personnel and researchers. Power-sharing and energy management operation, control, and planning issues are summarized for both grid-connected and islanded DC microgrids. Also, key research areas in DC microgrid planning, operation, and control are identified to adopt cutting-edge technologies. This review explicitly helps readers understand existing developments on DC microgrid planning, operation, and control as well as identify the need for additional research in order to further contribute to the topic.

The utilization of renewable energy sources (RESs) has become significant throughout the world, especially over the last two decades. Although high-level RESs penetration reduces negative environmental impact compared to conventional fossil fuel-based energy generation, control issues become more complex as the system inertia is significantly decreased due to the absence of conventional synchronous generators. Some other technical issues, high uncertainties, low fault ride through capability, high fault current, low generation reserve, and low power quality, arise due to RESs integration. Renewable energy like solar and wind are highly uncertain due to the intermittent nature of wind and sunlight. Cutting edge technologies including different control strategies, optimization techniques, energy storage devices, and fault current limiters are employed to handle those issues. This paper summarizes several challenges in the integration process of high-level RESs to the existing grid. The respective solutions to each challenge are presented and discussed. A comprehensive list of challenges and solutions, for both wind and solar energy integration cases, are well documented. Finally, the future recommendations are provided to solve the several problems of renewable energy integration which could be key research areas for the industry personnel and researchers.

The potential effects of autonomous vehicles (AVs) on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are uncertain, although numerous studies have been conducted to evaluate the impact. This paper aims to synthesize and review all the literature regarding the topic in a systematic manner to eliminate the bias and provide an overall insight, while incorporating some statistical analysis to provide an interval estimate of these studies. This paper addressed the effect of the positive and negative impacts reported in the literature in two categories of AVs: partial automation and full automation. The positive impacts represented in AVs’ possibility to reduce GHG emission can be attributed to some factors, including eco-driving, eco traffic signal, platooning, and less hunting for parking. The increase in vehicle mile travel (VMT) due to (i) modal shift to AVs by captive passengers, including elderly and disabled people and (ii) easier travel compared to other modes will contribute to raising the GHG emissions. The result shows that eco-driving and platooning have the most significant contribution to reducing GHG emissions by 35%. On the other side, easier travel and faster travel significantly contribute to the increase of GHG emissions by 41.24%. Study findings reveal that the positive emission changes may not be realized at a lower AV penetration rate, where the maximum emission reduction might take place within 60–80% of AV penetration into the network.

Direct current (DC) microgrids are becoming increasingly important due to a number of causes, including the widespread use of DC loads, the integration of solar photovoltaic (PV) and energy storage devices (ESDs), and the absence of frequency and reactive power control issues. The control of DC bus voltage, power management, effective power split among the ESDs, and state of charge (SoC) restorations are important in a DC microgrid. However, DC bus voltage control and power management are difficult since the microgrids connect several distributed generators (DGs), loads, utility grids, and ESDs to the DC bus using power electronic converters. It is imperative to properly control the DC bus voltage and manage power among the sources and loads in order to maintain the stability and reliability of DC microgrids. DC microgrids can be controlled by employing centralized, decentralized, distributed, multi-level, and hierarchical control systems to ensure safe and secure operation. Besides, advanced control techniques, such as nonlinear, robust, model predictive, artificial intelligence, and many others, are employed. This article critically reviews two main aspects of DC microgrids: voltage control and power management. The challenges and opportunities for voltage control and power management in DC microgrids are discussed. The benefits and drawbacks of various voltage control and power management methods have been thoroughly documented, making this a great resource for industry professionals and academics alike. Technical issues related to the voltage control and power management of grid-connected and islanded DC microgrids are discussed. Key research gaps are identified, which could be filled by cutting-edge technologies. Readers will benefit from this review by learning about the current state of DC microgrids voltage control and power management and the need for further research.

A paradigm shift in power systems is observed due to the massive integration of renewable energy sources (RESs) as distributed generators. Mainly, solar photovoltaic (PV) panels and wind generators are extensively integrated with the modern power system to facilitate green efforts in the electrical energy sector. However, integrating these RESs destabilizes the frequency of the modern power system. Hitherto, the frequency control has not drawn sufficient attention due to the reduced inertia and complex control of power electronic converters associated with renewable energy conversion systems. Thus, this article provides a critical summary on the frequency control of solar PV and wind-integrated systems. The frequency control issues with advanced techniques, including inertia emulation, de-loading, and grid-forming, are summarized. Moreover, several cutting-edge devices in frequency control are outlined. The advantages and disadvantages of different approaches to control the frequency of high-level RESs integrated systems are well documented. The possible improvements of existing approaches are outlined. The key research areas are identified, and future research directions are mentioned so that cutting-edge technologies can be adopted, making the review article unique compared to the existing reviews. The article could be an excellent foundation and guidance for industry personnel, researchers, and academicians.

This paper presents a distributionally robust planning model to determine the optimal allocation of wind farms in a multi-area power system, so that the expected energy not served (EENS) is minimized under uncertain wind power and generator forced outages. Unlike conventional stochastic programming approaches that rely on detailed information of the exact probability distribution, the proposed method attempts to minimize the expectation term over a collection of distributions characterized by accessible statistical measures, so it is more practical in cases where the detailed distribution data is unavailable. This planning model is formulated as a two-stage problem, where the wind power capacity allocation decisions are determined in the first stage, before the observation of uncertainty outcomes, and operation decisions are made in the second stage under specific uncertainty realizations. In this paper, the second-stage decisions are approximated by linear decision rule functions, so that the distributionally robust model can be reformulated into a tractable second-order cone programming problem. Case studies based on a five-area system are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method