Editorial: Modeling and Control of Power Electronics for Renewables

Wenping Zhang^1*Yongheng Yang²Chen Zhang³Dao Zhou⁴

• ¹Tianjin University, Tianjin, China
• ²Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
• ³Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
• ⁴Aalborg Universitet, Aalborg, Denmark

Power electronics is used in a wide range of applications, including switched-mode power supplies, motor drives, active power filters, and renewable power generation (RPG). In recent years, power electronics has experienced a rapid increase in use as the grid interface of RPG systems. However, as the penetration level of renewable energy grows significantly, increasing challenges have emerged, e.g., weak grid stability issues, high-frequency circulations, active grid support function, and arc faults. As a result, further tasks have been brought to the table to enhance the modeling and control of power electronics, and in-depth discussions on these issues are urgently required to provide technical support for the global energy transition.The main purpose of this Special Section is then to collect the recent advances in the modeling and control of power electronics converters, as well as to provide the researchers and engineers with how to analyze and model converter behaviors in order to improve their design and operation. A series of controls specifically designed for use with power converters to address emerging challenges like the weak grid stability issues, active grid support, arc detection, etc., are selectively archived in this Special Section. In general, this topic provides an overview of the state-of-the-art in modeling and controlling power electronics for renewable energy power systems. This topic is divided into four thematic areas ("optimization and control of photovoltaic (PV) systems", "technologies for enhancing grid stability", "modeling for transient characteristics and electromagnetic interference (EMI) analysis", and "cutting-edge intelligent control algorithms"), and this Special Section has collected 12 articles.The first area focuses on optimizing and controlling photovoltaic systems. Zhang et al. presented "A ground current suppression method for systems with a large number of photovoltaic (PV) inverters," [1] in which a hardware-software approach is proposed. The hardware solution diverts ground current to the DC bus via filter capacitors, while the software-based mitigation strategy (carrier phase shifting and frequency shifting) is synthesized to mutually cancel zero-sequence currents across multiple inverters. This method addresses escalating ground current issues in large-scale PV plants, and it has been experimentally validated to reduce leakage currents and stabilize grid-connected operation without the need for grid neutral-point access. Moreover, in the paper "An operating mode control method for photovoltaic (PV) battery hybrid Zhang et