Preface

Over the past decade, with rapidly evolving new technologies, and increased usage of digital information, monitoring, and control, the smart grid concept has been promoted all over the world, attracting huge interest. A smart grid is an intelligent electricity network that uses digital and other advanced technologies, such as cyber security communication or Internet of Energy technologies, that can be integrated in a cost-efficient manner. It can monitor and control the generation and transport of electricity to the end user/consumer in an efficient, economic, and secure way to ensure a sustainable power system with low losses and high levels of quality.

In the future, smart grids with energy management systems will include more distributed generation systems, such as renewable energy sources, as well as power electronics converters, energy storage technologies, advanced communications, and smart homes. Smart grids and electric vehicles (EVs) are two examples of fast-growing technologies that would greatly benefit from the development of advanced infrastructure and components. On the edge of the smart grid infrastructure, where consumers can produce energy from several local and distributed generation units, the need for energy management tools and control algorithms becomes an important option. To address these issues, many papers, research reports and books have proposed numerous smart grid concepts, software architectures, and simulation models/tools.

This book presents a comprehensive overview of smart grids, with information on emerging grid structures and future vision in the development and deployment of smart grids. Advancements in smart grids include advanced smart grid architectures with smart power systems containing communication and information technologies, renewable energy integration with power electronic converters and energy storage systems suitable for smart grid applications, and energy management strategies, including demand-side management (DSM) and demand response (DR). The book also discusses emerging applications, including EVs and charging stations, as well as big data management, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence.

The book contains six chapters organized into three sections. Section 1, "AC-DC Smart Hybrid Microgrids: Modeling, Control and Applications", contains two chapters. Chapter 1, "A Review on the Driving Forces, Challenges, and Applications of AC/DC Hybrid Smart Microgrids", discusses the advantages and disadvantages of AC/DC hybrid microgrids and analyzes potential applications that would benefit from such infrastructures. It also discusses the most significant efforts and requirements for the constitution of a solid regulatory framework for AC/DC hybrid grids. Chapter 2, "Hierarchical Control of an Islanded AC Micro Grid Using FS-MPC and an EMS", deals with the modelling of DER components in an AC microgrid, with each component using Finite Set-Model Predictive Control (FS-MPC) for controlling their power electronic converters. A supervisory controller for the energy management system of the microgrid to operate in different power flows through the proposed control algorithm has also been designed.

Section 2, "Smart Distribution Systems: Methodologies, Real-time Platforms and Testing Methods", also contains two chapters. Chapter 3, "Network Reconfiguration and Reactive Power Compensation Dispatch in Smart Distribution Systems", presents two methodologies for solving the reconfiguration and reactive power compensation dispatch in a smart distribution network. Both methodologies are formulated as two-stage solve reconfiguration and reactive power compensation problems with the characteristic of having acceptable computational efficiency and loss reduction close to the optimal solution. Chapter 4, "Advances and Prospects in Distributed Generation Sources Digital Twins Design", points out the most important digital twin types, highlighting their advantages and disadvantages as well as their applications. In this sense, it could be regarded as a set of guidelines on how to choose appropriate digital twin types and digital twinning platforms for some research and engineering problems.

Section 3, "Energy Storage Systems and Their Applications in Smart Grids", includes two chapters. Chapter 5, "Energy Storage Systems and Their Role in Smart Grids", presents the different types of storage systems and their advantages and disadvantages. It describes the main roles that energy storage systems will play in the context of smart grids. It also discusses interactions between energy storage systems and renewables. The emphasis is on the problems that these storage systems will have to deal with and the possible means that can be used for this purpose. Finally, the chapter presents the battery management system as a general concept. Chapter 6, "Segmented Coil Design Powering the Next Generation of High-efficiency Robust Micro-implants", introduces unique optimisation metrics for designing efficient transmit and receive coils for near-field magnetics-based charging solutions. It elaborates on how the metrics need to be altered depending on the regulatory limits and discusses the impact of body tissue loading on transmit and receive coil performance using circuit analysis. The chapter also introduces a novel "segmented" transmit coil arrangement and compares the near fields with and without tissue loading to show that segmented coils offer a significant improvement in the performance and robustness of a wireless power transfer system.

I would like to thank all authors and contributors of the individual chapters for their efforts and for the quality of the research material submitted. I would also like to thank Author Service Manager Dolores Kuzelj at IntechOpen for their support during the publishing process.

> **Lucian Mihet-Popa** Faculty of Information Technology, Engineering and Economics, Østfold University College, Fredrikstad, Norway

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Section 1

AC-DC Smart Hybrid

Microgrids: Modeling,

Control and Applications

## Section 1
