Standalone power-supply systems become a key solution to effectively address the load demand in remote locations, wherein the voltage asymmetry raises as a particular concern in view of a large number of single-phase household and communities loads. Over these loading conditions, the use of the four-leg voltage source inverters (FL-VSIs) appears as a suitable topology to provide clean power with symmetrical voltage waveforms. The reported work employs the differential flatness theory associated with grey wolf optimization in order to guarantee proper operations of the FL-VSIs in different loading conditions. In fact, the differential flatness theory is applied to check the flatness of the FL-VSIs, which allows implementing a reduced control model. Then, a grey wolf algorithm, which acts as a tracking controller [grey wolf controller (GWC)], is developed. The GWC generates an optimal control signal used by the differentially flat model so as to ensure adequate control performance, even under severe load disturbances and model inaccuracies. A comprehensive experimental test is carried out to validate the effectiveness of the proposed flatness-based grey wolf controller.

Microgrids technologies are seen as a cost effective and reliable solution to handle numerous challenges, mainly related to climate change and power demand increase. This is mainly due to their potential for integrating available on-site renewable energy sources and their flexibility and scalability. The particularity of microgrids is related to their capacity to operate in synchronization with the main grid or in islanded mode to secure the power supply of nearby end-users after a grid failure thanks to storage solutions and an intelligent control system. The most critical operating case occurs when a sudden transition from grid-connected (GC) to stand-alone operation (SA) happens. During the transition, the system experiences abrupt changes that can result in a malfunction of the control system and a possible failure of the power system. The transition issue attracted considerable attention from researchers. Indeed, many research works are proposed to address this issue by proposing detection and transition techniques that ensure a smooth transition at the islanding time. Although there are several approaches to dealing with this issue, a categorization of the proposed methods in the literature and their differences is useful to assist engineers and researchers working on this topic. Thus, this study proposes a comprehensive review to summarize these approaches and point out their advantages and limitations.