Pathways to Secure and Stable Island Power Systems [Guest Editorial]

In a fast-changing world, island power systems face urgent environmental, economic, sustainability, and social challenges. Historically, island power systems were built to rely on oil-fired generation, causing carbon-intensive power generation, high costs to consumers, and dependance on market price volatilities, thus hindering their economic development and social stability. Reducing or eliminating the dependence on costly imported fossil-fuels has many benefits but also presents significant challenges when shifting to local but variable and power electronic-based sources, such as wind and solar. Island power systems are at the forefront of integrating extremely high shares of variable renewable generation and face related reliability challenges that are yet to be seen in larger interconnected power systems on the continental mainland. This is because island power systems operate in isolation and rely on their local grid resources to ensure stable operation.