Editorial: Advanced intelligent control strategies for solar and wind farms

Abstract

This research topic addressed new and advanced techniques in controlling, operating and augmenting solar photovoltaics (PVs) and wind turbines low voltage or fault ride through scenarios. This is necessary for the effective operation of solar and wind farms based on the stipulated grid codes (requirements).The first paper on this research topic (Okedu) investigated three types of Fault Current Limiters (FCLs) that were tied to the network side of a Permanent Magnet Synchronous Generator (PMSG) wind turbine. These three FCLs are; Series Dynamic Braking Resistor (SDBR), traditional Bridge Fault Current Limiter (BFCL), and Capacitive Bridge Fault Current Limiter (CBFCL). The modeling of the PMSG wind turbine (Okedu and Barghash 2021), and those of the FCLs were done and analyzed in the wind generator considering severe threephase to ground fault, in order to test the robustness of the various control strategies. The results show improved performance of the PMSG wind turbine variables when the same conditions of operation were employed, for fair comparison of the three FCL schemes.The second paper presented wind power system operational state assessment considering Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation (FCE) models (Zhang et al.). In this paper, the hybrid approach of AHP and PSO models were used in optimizing the weights in the comprehensive evaluation of the operational status of wind power system. This strategy would help in addressing the challenges of the AHP weights determination process based on the judgment matrix (Li et al., 2021), where the values of the weights and their consistencies are of paramount interest. The earlier solutions in the literature were not able to enhance these challenges, however, this study employed a comparison chart of the consistency indexes that were computed at different degrees. Furthermore, for several judgment indexes scenarios, in a sub-project layer having serious deviation, a degradation index was introduced and fuzzy comprehensive judgment strategy was applied accordingly. This would improve the effective establishment of wind power system operational status assessment models.

Solar Energy Success: Mastering the Parameters that Matter

“…Predictive maintenance identifies issues early on and prevents unexpected downtime [32]. Dynamic control systems adjust the angle and position of solar panels to optimize energy output, and microgrids provide localized energy storage and distribution [33][34][35]. Weather forecasting provides advanced warnings of weather events, while DERs provide additional sources of energy storage and demand response [36,37].…”