Electric and hybrid electric vehicles (EV/HEV) are promising solutions for fossil fuel conservation and pollution reduction for a safe environment and sustainable transportation. The design of these energy-efficient powertrains requires optimization of components, systems, and controls. Controls entail battery management, fuel consumption, driver performance demand emissions, and management strategy. The hardware optimization entails powertrain architecture, transmission type, power electronic converters, and energy storage systems. In this overview, all these factors are addressed and reviewed. Major challenges and future technologies for EV/HEV are also discussed. Published suggestions and recommendations are surveyed and evaluated in this review. The outcomes of detailed studies are presented in tabular form to compare the strengths and weaknesses of various methods. Furthermore, issues in the current research are discussed, and suggestions toward further advancement of the technology are offered. This article analyzes current research and suggests challenges and scope of future research in EV/HEV and can serve as a reference for those working in this field.

Electric Vehicle (EV) technology is expected to take a major share in the light-vehicle market in the coming decades. Charging of EVs will put an extra burden on the distribution grid and in some cases adjustments will need to be made. On the other hand, EVs have the potential to support the grid under various conditions. This paper studies possible potential and applications of Vehicle to Grid (V2G) services, including active power services, which discharge the EV batteries, and power quality services, which do not engage the battery or require only small amounts of battery charge. The advantages and disadvantages of each service and the likelihood that a given service will be effective and beneficial for the grid in the future are discussed. Further, the infrastructure cost, duration, and value of V2G services are compared qualitatively.

Pollution problems caused by fossil fuels has lead more investigations on renewable energy systems. Photo-voltaic cells and fuel-cells output low level voltage than required, therefore, high gain dc-dc converters are used to boost this low voltage. The Z-source converter can be employed as dc-dc converter to boost the PV panel voltages. It also offers other advantages, such as clamped switched voltage, high voltage gain, isolation of energy source from the load and positive polarity for output voltage. Therefore, this is a good choice for high step-up applications. This paper presents analysis of a novel high stepup z-source based dc-dc converter that has higher voltage gain than the z-source converter. Furthermore, high efficiency, low device voltage stress and wide voltage gain range make it a good candidate for photo-voltaic and high voltage step-up applications. The proposed dc-dc converter is evaluated experimentally for converting 24 V DC input to 300 V DC output at 100 W and to validate the simulation results.

Buildings contribute to greenhouse gas emissions that cause environmental impacts on climate change. Net Zero Energy (NZ) buildings would reduce greenhouse gases. The current definition of NZ lacks consensus and has created uncertainties, which cause delays in the adoption of NZ. This paper proposes a Process for Clarification to Accelerate the Net Zero (PC-A-NZ) through three integrated steps: variations, strategies, and requirements. We expand on the results in published NZ literature to clarify the differences in definition and strategy. The objective of this review is to (1) distinguish current variable parameters that are slowing the acceptance of NZ, and (2) focus the discussion internationally on moving faster toward applying NZ to a larger common agreement. The publications of global NZ target assessment and energy efficient strategies will be reviewed to address the main requirements in expediting NZ’s successful progress. Our NZ review analysis highlights (1) how the existing NZ definitions and criteria differ, (2) how calculation strategies vary, and (3) how standards and requirements are often localized. The proposed PC-A-NZ will help policymakers and stakeholders to re-evaluate the existing definitions, standards, and requirements to optimize the use of renewable technologies, improved energy efficiency and electrification to speed up achieving the NZ targets. Definition: There are multiple NZ definitions that vary in source and supply requirement, timescale, emission source, and grid connection.

The Integration of renewable energy resources suffers from two fundamental issues: variability, and uncertainty of power output. These issues hinder the integration of renewable resources with the existing grid. This paper addresses these issues and proposes a new methodology to minimize the impact of intermittency by offering an alternative approach for energy storage. The concept of value storage is introduced as an alternative to energy storage to replace the typical large-scale battery energy storage system. The concept refers to the storage of excess renewable energy as products from industrial loads instead of the energy itself which enables a demand side management technique to be applied, namely, load shifting for some industrial plants. A hybrid Photovoltaic-wind turbine generator PV-WTG and storage system is proposed to penetrate the existing electric grid, with significant cost savings by displacing the conventional energy generation in a fossil fuel-rich location. A size optimization based on differential system cost is formulated and solved by an enhanced genetic algorithm technique. Uncertainty impact studies were done by incorporating multiple scenarios and comprehensive sensitivity analysis.

Fault diagnosis and fault tolerant (FT) control of electric drive systems have been extensively studied by many researchers. Naturally, one would like to use fault diagnosis information to improve FT control to achieve good post-fault performance while it is safe to do so. In this paper, a novel FT control method is proposed for permanent magnet synchronous motor with inter-turn short circuit fault. Given fault severity, the proposed FT control can reduce torque ripple while keeping reasonable torque output. The theoretical derivation, simulation, and experimental validation are presented in this paper.