Smart Inverters for Utility and Industry Applications

Smart inverters are emerging with increasing renewable energy and smart grid development. While the recent work reviewed mostly focuses on defining standardized control functionalities and smart grid communication protocols, we take a holistic approach in this paper and propose a holon-type smart inverter concept, which features autonomous, adaptive, cooperative and plug-and-play functions. Self-awareness is also continually driven by power electronics inherently. These features can be favorable in a complex environment with more and more small-scale power electronics-based devices, and can reduce system control and communication requirements during both normal and faulty operations. Challenges may present when multiple distributed inverters are required to collectively achieve a common goal. With Industry 4.0, it is expected that smart inverters will be highly demanded at conversion and connection levels in smart manufacturing environment.