A communication infrastructure is an essential part to the success of the emerging smart grid. A scalable and pervasive communication infrastructure is crucial in both construction and operation of a smart grid. In this paper, we present the background and motivation of communication infrastructures in smart grid systems. We also summarize major requirements that smart grid communications must meet. From the experience of several industrial trials on smart grid with communication infrastructures, we expect that the traditional carbon fuel based power plants can cooperate with emerging distributed renewable energy such as wind, solar, etc, to reduce the carbon fuel consumption and consequent green house gas such as carbon dioxide emission. The consumers can minimize their expense on energy by adjusting their intelligent home appliance operations to avoid the peak hours and utilize the renewable energy instead. We further explore the challenges for a communication infrastructure as the part of a complex smart grid system. Since a smart grid system might have over millions of consumers and devices, the demand of its reliability and security is extremely critical. Through a communication infrastructure, a smart grid can improve power reliability and quality to eliminate electricity blackout. Security is a challenging issue since the on-going smart grid systems facing increasing vulnerabilities as more and more automation, remote monitoring/controlling and supervision entities are interconnected.

https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1315&context=electricalengineeringfacpub

A Survey on Smart Grid CommunicationInfrastructures: Motivations, Requirements andChallenges

Review on non-isolated DC-DC converters and their control techniques for renewable energy applications

1 Background and Motivation for Thin-Film Solar-Cell Development.- 2 Recent Advances and Future Opportunities for Thin-Film Solar Cell.- 3 Electrical and Optical Properties of Amorphous Silicon and Its Alloys.- 4 Preparation and Properties of Nanocrystalline Silicon.- 5 Key Issues for the Efficiency Improvement of Silicon-Based Stacked Solar Cells.- 6 Development of Amorphous-Silicon Single-Junction Solar Cells and Their Application Systems.- 7 The Production of a-Si:H/a-SiGe:H/a-SiGe:H Stacked Solar-Cell Modules and Their Applications.- 8 Low-Temperature Fabrication of Nanocrystalline-Silicon Solar Cells.- 9 Mass Production of Large-Area Integrated Thin-Film Silicon Solar-Cell Module.- 10 Properties of Chalcopyrite-Based Materials and Film Deposition for Thin-Film Solar Cells.- 11 Development of Cu(InGa)Se2 Thin-Film Solar Cells.- 12 Expanding Thin-Film Solar PV System Applications.- 13 Future Prospects for Photovoltaic Technologies in Japan.

Thin-film solar cells : next generation photovoltaics and its applications

The concept of smart cities has gained significant momentum in science and policy circles over the past decade. This study aims to provide an overview of the structure and trends in the literature on smart cities. Bibliometric analysis and science mapping techniques using VOSviewer and CiteSpace are used to identify the thematic focus of over 5000 articles indexed in the Web of Science since 1991. In addition to providing insights into the thematic evolution of the field, the three-decade study period is divided into two sub-periods (1991–2015 and 2016–2021). While splitting the dataset into more sub-periods would have been desirable, we decided to only examine two sub-periods as only very few papers have been published until 2010. The annual number of publications has progressively increased since then, with a surge in the annual number of publications observable from 2015 onwards. The thematic analysis showed that the intellectual base of the field has been very limited during the first period, but has expanded significantly since 2015. Over time, some thematic evolutions, such as further attention to linkages to climate change and resilience, and more emphasis on security and privacy issues, have been made. The thematic analysis shows that existing research on smart cities is dominated by either conceptual issues or underlying technical aspects. It is, therefore, essential to do more research on the implementation of smart cities and actual and/or potential contributions of smart cities to solving societal issues. In addition to elaborating on thematic focus, the study also highlights major authors, journals, references, countries, and institutions that have contributed to the development of the smart cities literature.

Three Decades of Research on Smart Cities: Mapping Knowledge Structure and Trends

Power quality (PQ) has become an important topic in today’s power system scenario. PQ issues are raised not only in normal three-phase systems but also with the incorporation of different distributed generations (DGs), including renewable energy sources, storage systems, and other systems like diesel generators, fuel cells, etc. The prevalence of these issues comes from the non-linear features and rapid changing of power electronics devices, such as switch-mode converters for adjustable speed drives and diode or thyristor rectifiers. The wide use of these fast switching devices in the utility system leads to an increase in disturbances associated with harmonics and reactive power. The occurrence of PQ disturbances in turn creates several unwanted effects on the utility system. Therefore, many researchers are working on the enhancement of PQ using different custom power devices (CPDs). In this work, the authors highlight the significance of the PQ in the utility network, its effect, and its solution, using different CPDs, such as passive, active, and hybrid filters. Further, the authors point out several compensation strategies, including reference signal generation and gating signal strategies. In addition, this paper also presents the role of the active power filter (APF) in different DG systems. Some technical and economic considerations and future developments are also discussed in this literature. For easy reference, a volume of journals of more than 140 publications on this particular subject is reported. The effectiveness of this research work will boost researchers’ ability to select proper control methodology and compensation strategy for various applications of APFs for improving PQ.

/pdf/a-comprehensive-survey-on-different-control-strategies-and-ao660ne2vm.pdf

A Comprehensive Survey on Different Control Strategies and Applications of Active Power Filters for Power Quality Improvement

Recent advancement in smart grid technology: Future prospects in the electrical power network

Renewable photovoltaic (PV) energy is a primary contributor to sustainable power generation in microgrids. However, PV grid-tied generators remain functional as long as the grid voltage and the input PV source remain normal. Abnormal conditions like transient grid sags or solar irradiation flickering can make the grid-tied inverter go offline. Simultaneous shut down of PV generators residing in the distribution grid may lead to an overall grid instability or outage. Therefore, PV generators must be equipped with fault-ride-through mechanisms in order to remain connected and operational during faults. This paper presents a PV-inverter with low-voltage-ride-through (LVRT) and low-irradiation (LR) compensation to avoid grid flickers. The single-phase inverter rides through the voltage sags while injecting reactive power into the grid. The proposed control strategy ensures a steady DC-link voltage and remains connected to the grid during AC-side low voltage and DC-side low-irradiation faults. Unlike other PV inverters, the controller maintains the maximum-power-point-tracking (MPPT) in all conditions. LVRT, constant power output, and robust MPPT are the noticeable features of the proposed system. Frequency analysis, simulations, and a laboratory prototype validate the proposed control strategy.

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/ielx7/6287639/9668973/09733375.pdf

Multi-Functional PV Inverter With Low Voltage Ride-Through and Constant Power Output

Solar cell designing and fabrication has always fascinated researchers, physicists, scientist and engineers of photovoltaic industry. Scientist seek solution to mend the efficiency and design of thin film solar cells. This paper illustrate the comprehensive overview of thin film solar cells and their structure. Furthermore various categories of thin film solar cells, strength and weakness of solar cells and techniques to enhance the efficiency of solar cells are also discussed in this paper. Thin film solar cell technology belongs to second generation of solar cells and fabricated by depositing layers of thin film of photovoltaic material on a substrate. Most prosaic substrate used to fabricate thin film solar cells are metal, plastic and glass. Thin film solar cells are much compendious as compared to their rival crystalline solar cell technology. The size of thin film solar cell diverges from few nanometer to ten micrometers.  Review suggest that III-V semiconductor such as Gallium Nitride and Gallium Arsenide are endowed with many attractive properties for fabrication of thin film solar cell. Heterojunction thin film solar cells hold much higher efficiency compared to homojunction thin film solar cells owing to their high optical raptness.

Overview and performance enhancement of unabridged thin film solar cell

Effect of hot rolling on microstructures and mechanical properties of Ni base superalloy

Automation of daily routine systems has become a necessary now-a-days. Research has been focus to automate the basic elements of the households to make the house a more energy efficient and economical. There are number of ways to automate the home system. This study focuses on how to make a home automation system to control house hold items more efficiently. It comprises of three main hardware parts: device that transfer signals to appliances, server to support between user and components, and a mobile or computer device to operate the whole system.  This proposed home automation system is advance and efficient. It has a security system and a mobile application that controls the whole system. In addition this automation system has intelligent software which helps the user to consume the energy effectively and economically.

Osama Majeed Butt

Papers

Recent advancement in smart grid technology: Future prospects in the electrical power network

Multi-Functional PV Inverter With Low Voltage Ride-Through and Constant Power Output

Overview and performance enhancement of unabridged thin film solar cell

Effect of hot rolling on microstructures and mechanical properties of Ni base superalloy

Development of smart home automation system by using controlled network