Home energy management systems (HEMSs) help manage electricity demand to optimize energy consumption and distributed renewable energy generation without compromising consumers’ comfort. HEMSs operate according to multiple criteria, including energy cost, weather conditions, load profiles, and consumer comfort. They play an increasingly ubiquitous role in energy efficiency through the reduction of electricity consumption within residential and commercial smart grids. This paper presents a comprehensive review of the HEMS literature with reference to main concepts, configurations, and enabling technologies. In doing so, it also provides a summary of HEMS computing trends and popular communication technologies for demand response applications. The ensuing survey offers the reader with an overall overview of current and future trends in HEMS solutions and technologies.

With the ever-increasing number of blackouts in distribution systems arising from a variety of natural and manmade disasters, the frequent and necessary isolation/reconnection of loads without power deviations/fluctuations has become an important issue. Grid of microgrids (MG)s is a promising solution towards a highly resilient and efficient power grid operation. To facilitate this implementation, seamless transition with the utility grid is a key feature the today's MG control needs to possess. This transition ability is of great prominence, especially after the accelerated adaptation of distributed renewable energy sources (RES) in MGs. This ability of the MGs should ensure uninterrupted energy services to critical loads and infrastructures. Thus, the implementation of MG control strategies to enable smooth transition between grid-connected (GC) and islanded (IS) operation modes is mandatory. The control scheme implemented should therefore be capable of mitigating the stirring voltage/current deviations due to frequency/phase misalignment during the transition process. This paper provides an overview of the various MG control schemes that enable seamless transition between GC and IS modes of operation. The main purpose of this paper is to provide a generic overview of the challenges and existing techniques available in literature to mitigate the voltage and frequency (V-f) fluctuations at the MG's point of common coupling (PCC) and that of the utility grid; during the transition process. It aims at motivating the development of advanced control schemes in this area of MG related research.

This paper presents an isolated single-stage on-board electric vehicle charger without an intermediate DC-link. Based on an isolated current-source topology, the converter features soft-switching in semiconductors regardless of load variation for the full AC line voltage range. Moreover, it requires no external snubber or clamp circuits. The power factor correction and voltage regulation are provided by a relatively simple phase shift modulation, while the amount of circulating energy is kept at minimum. The charger is distinguished by its efficiency characteristic – the maximum is achieved in the constant power charging mode. The control method, component stresses, and design constraints of the topology are analyzed. The concept is verified using a 3 kW experimental SiC-based prototype, which reaches a peak efficiency of 96.4%. Moreover, the charger has demonstrated efficiencies above 95% with the THD of 4.1% when operating in constant power mode at the maximal power.

The energy paradigm is making the modern power grid more difficult to study, design, and control. Precisely speaking, the pace of the new energy paradigm involves the high penetration of power electronics systems in the power grid, which becomes a challenge from stability, vulnerability, and power-quality points of views. Therefore, various literature have focused on defining the modern power grid as the power electronics-dominated grid (PEDG).

This paper presents finite-control-set model-predictive control (FCS-MPC) for a three-phase quasi-Zsource (qZS) four-leg inverter under unbalanced load condition. The key novelty of the proposed control approach is eliminating the double-line frequency ripple in the inductor current with a simple and effective approach. The proposed four-leg qZS inverter with an output LC filter can handle buck/boost and dc/ac conversion features in a single stage. Furthermore, the FCS-MPC-based control algorithm helps in maintaining balanced point of common coupling voltages for stand-alone unbalanced loads. The behavior of the predictive controller has been investigated under different operating conditions, and its robustness with the qZS network and the LC filter parameter variations are also studied. Furthermore, the effect of double-line frequency ripple and its relation with the inductor current constraint have been tackled comprehensively. To verify the performance of the proposed approach, simulation and experimental studies were performed for balanced and unbalanced loads.