Power converters, control, and energy management for distributed generation

Distributed generation (DG) is expected to play a vital role in the future to improve the quality of human life. DG and its integration to the local AC grid provide options for economical, continuous, and bidirectional power flow (utility interface). In addition, it provides a back-up to support during grid failure or blackouts. Extensive promotion of the DC grid is also proposed for the future to facilitate easy integration of renewable resources. Low-voltage DC grid derived from DG is safe and may cover a significant portion of residential load, which is mostly DC load avoiding inefficient AC/DC power supply. Vehicles in the smart grid have introduced a concept of living and mobility, i.e., sustainable living and low carbon mobility and are foreseen as a part of future microgrid. Research is needed to push and commercialize these technologies to make the environment clean by replacing conventional generation systems. This “Special Section on Power Converters, Control, and Energy Management for Distribution Generation” of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, is a step forward to promote and encourage extensive investigations in the areas associated with DG. In all, 16 papers were selected, which have one or more very unique features for the proposed applications. The topics range from new high gain DC/DC converters to inverters for solar PV integration on one side and development of effective test bed to brushless generation systems for potential DG applications on the other. To facilitate an in-depth survey of the published papers, the Guest Editors will now examine one by one the different contributions by highlighting the most noteworthy developments and findings.