During this decade,many countries have experienced natural and accidental disasters,such as typhoons,floods,earthquakes,and nuclear plant accidents,causing catastrophic damage to infrastructures.Since the end of 2019,all countries of the world are struggling with the COVID-19 and pursuing countermeasures,including inoculation of vaccine,and changes in our lifestyle and social structures.All these experiences have made the residents in the affected regions keenly aware of the need for new infrastructures that are resilient and autonomous,so that vital lifelines are secured during calamities.A paradigm shift has been taking place toward reorganizing the energy social service management in many countries,including Japan,by effective use of sustainable energy and new supply schemes.However,such new power sources and supply schemes would affect the power grid through intermittency of power output and the deterioration of power quality and service.Therefore,new social infrastructures and novel management systems to supply energy and social service will be required.In this paper,user-friendly design,operation and control assist tools for resilient microgrids and autonomous communities are proposed and applied to the standard microgrid to verify its effectiveness and performance.

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Battery energy storage systems,fuel cells,and photovoltaic generators are being adopted in distribution networks to achieve CO2 emission reduction.These power sources require inverters to connect to AC networks.However,subnetworks,such as a microgrids containing inverter power sources,may be disconnected from the utility network and operated in a standalone mode during extended blackouts.This study focuses on a standalone microgrid supplied by inverter power sources without a synchronous generator and proposes a new microgrid inverter control.In this inverter control,a single grid forming inverter is operated as a master power source to determine frequency and voltage,and other inverters,called grid following inverters,are operated as subordinate power sources with active and reactive power control.The necessary functions in the energy management system are examined,and the coordinated operation of all inverters in the microgrid is demonstrated via simulation.

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This paper reports on the status of technology development under a national project launched in 2019 to address the problem of decreased system inertia associated with the large-scale integration of renewable energy.The project comprises two parts: the development of a system inertia observation technology using a continuous monitoring system to observe inertia and development of an inverter equipped with a function to provide virtual inertia as a countermeasure device.Utilizing both these efforts,the project aims to facilitate the introduction of renewable energy in the future with minimum restrictions.It was confirmed that the trend of inertia observed with the developed method was generally the same as that of the total inertia of synchronous machines observed by an electric utility.The effectiveness of the countermeasure device in reducing the frequency swing during a disturbance was confirmed through evaluation tests.

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Renewable energy resources play an important role in the realization of the carbon neutrality.The microgrid can efficiently integrate numerous renewable energy systems into power distribution systems to realize power supply resiliency and environmental affinity.This paper reviews the current trend of microgrid and networked microgrid technologies worldwide,particularly in Japan,including the Flexible,Reliable,and Intelligent Energy Delivery System (FRIENDS) and some other examples of the networked microgrid.Some recent digitalized control functions of the microgrid and related systems are also introduced.

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This paper proposes a comprehensive framework for estimating the regional rooftop photovoltaic (PV) potential.The required rooftop information is extracted from Gao Fen-7 satellite images.In particular,the rooftop area is obtained using a semantic segmentation network.The azimuth and inclination angles are calculated based on the digital surface model.In addition,to improve the accuracy of the economic evaluation,buildings are divided into commercial and industrial buildings and residential buildings.Based on the difference in the roof inclination,the rooftops can be divided into flat roofs,on which the PV panels are installed with the optimal inclination angle,and sloped rooftops,on which the PV panels are installed in a lay-flat manner.The solar irradiation on the plane-of-array is calculated using the isotropic sky translocation model.Then,the available installed capacity and generation potential of the rooftop PV is obtained.Finally,the net present value,dynamic payback period,and internal rate of return are used to evaluate the economic efficiency of the rooftop PV project.The proposed framework is applied in the Da Xing district of Beijing,China,with a total area of 546.84 km2.The results show that the rooftop area and available installed capacity of PV are 25.63 km2 and 1487.45 MWp,respectively.The annual rooftop PV generation potential is 2832.23 GWh,with significant economic returns.

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The equivalent simplification of large wind farms is essential for evaluating the safety of power systems.However,sub-synchronous oscillations can significantly affect the stability of power systems.Although detailed mathematical models of wind farms can help accurately analyze the oscillation mechanism,the solution process is complicated and may lead to problems such as the “dimensional disaster.” Therefore,this paper proposes a sub-synchronous frequency domainequivalent modeling method for wind farms based on the nature of the equivalent resistance of the rotor,in order to analyze sub-synchronous oscillations accurately.To this end,Matlab/Simulink is used to simulate a detailed model,a single-unit model,and an equivalent model,considering a wind farm as an example.A simulation analysis is then performed under the sub-synchronous frequency to prove that the model is effective and that the wind farm equivalence model method is valid.

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The current energy trend indicates a strong thrust toward transforming renewable energy as a major power source.To achieve this mission,battery energy storage systems (BESSs) are indispensable.Although BESSs are expensive,cost reduction can be achieved by using BESSs for multiple purposes,such as load leveling,business continuity planning,frequency control,capacity market,arbitrage,and emergency power.In this paper,various applications of BESSs are classified.The possibility of achieving conflict-free combination of different applications is demonstrated.The total required energy storage capacity in Japan is estimated to be 150–200 GWh by 2030.The present status of NaS batteries for multipurpose use and new trends in battery-based businesses are introduced.

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To realize the low-carbon development of power systems,digital transformation,and power marketization reform,the substation,data center,energy storage,photovoltaic,and charging stations are important components for the construction of new infrastructure.The integration infrastructure represented by multi-station integrated energy systems(MSIESs) represents the development trend,and its connotation and denotation are not immutable.This study firstly analyzed the components of MSIESs and their sub-stations and overall characteristics,and proposed an overall architecture for MSIESs.Thereafter,this system was characterized in detail from three aspects: planning and design,operation control,and market operation.The planning and construction of MSIESs was analyzed from the aspects of planning and design process,typical fusion subsystems,supply and demand prediction,and capacity determination; the operational control of MSIESs was analyzed from the aspects of model construction,coordination control,and safety assessment.Moreover,the market operation of MSIESs was examined from the aspects of the business model and spot market.Furthermore,the technical development trend of MSIESs has been explored in this study.

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Grid-forming (GFM) converters can provide inertia support for power grids through control technology,stabilize voltage and frequency,and improve system stability,unlike traditional grid-following (GFL) converters.Therefore,in future“double high” power systems,research on the control technology of GFM converters will become an urgent demand.In this paper,we first introduce the basic principle of GFM control and then present five currently used control strategies for GFM converters: droop control,power synchronization control (PSC),virtual synchronous machine control (VSM),direct power control (DPC),and virtual oscillator control (VOC).These five strategies can independently establish voltage phasors to provide inertia to the system.Among these,droop control is the most widely used strategy.PSC and VSM are strategies that simulate the mechanical characteristics of synchronous generators; thus,they are more accurate than droop control.DPC regulates the active power and reactive power directly,with no inner current controller,and VOC is a novel method under study using an oscillator circuit to realize synchronization.Finally,we highlight key technologies and research directions to be addressed in the future.

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