The concept of sustainable development has received growing recognition, but it is a new
idea for many business executives. For most, the concept remains abstract and
theoretical.
Protecting an organization’s capital base is a well-accepted business principle. Yet
organizations do not generally recognize
The concept of sustainable development has received growing recognition, but it is a new
idea for many business executives. For most, the concept remains abstract and
theoretical.
Protecting an organization’s capital base is a well-accepted business principle. Yet
organizations do not generally recognize
The concept of smart cities emerged few years ago as a new vision for urban
development that aims to integrate multiple information and communication
technology (ICT) solutions in a secure fashion to manage a city’s assets. Modern ICT
infrastructure and e-services should fuel sustainable growth and quality of life,
enabled by a wise and participative management of natural resources to be ensured
by citizens and government. The need to build smart cities became a requirement that
relies on urban development that should take charge of the new infrastructures for
smart cities (broadband infrastructures, wireless sensor networks, Internet-based
networked applications, open data and open platforms) and provide various smart
services and enablers in various domains including healthcare, energy, education,
environmental management, transportation, mobility and public safety.
Since the 1990s the EU has been pursuing climate change mitigation targets. Following the
international commitment to the legally binding greenhouse gas reduction under the Kyoto
Protocol, the 2020 policy package consists of a set of binding legislation to ensure that the EU
meets its climate and energy targets for the year 2020. The package sets three key targets: 20%
reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (from 1990 levels), 20% of EU energy from renewables (as
well as a 10% target for renewable fuels) and 20% improvement in energy efficiency. The targets
were set by EU leaders in 2007 and enacted in legislation in 2009 3 . They are also headline targets of
the Europe 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth.
The large-scale deployment of the smart grid (SG) paradigm could play a strategic role in
supporting the evolution of conventional electrical grids toward active, flexible and self-
healing web energy networks composed of distributed and cooperative energy resources.
From a conceptual point of view, the SG is the convergence of information and
operational technologies applied to the electric grid, providing sustainable options to
customers and improved security. Advances in research on SGs could increase the
efficiency of modern electrical power systems by: (i) supporting the massive penetration
of small-scale distributed and dispersed generators; (ii) facilitating the integration of
pervasive synchronized metering systems; (iii) improving the interaction and cooperation
between the network components; and (iv) allowing the wider deployment of self-healing
and proactive control/protection paradigms.
A modern power grid needs to become smarter in order to provide an affordable,
reliable, and sustainable supply of electricity. For these reasons, a smart grid is
necessary to manage and control the increasingly complex future grid. Certain
smart grid elements including renewable energy, storage, microgrid, consumer
choice, and smart appliances like electric vehicles increase uncertainty in both
supply and demand of electric power.
Power Electronics is one of modern and key technologies in Electrical and
Electronics Engineering for green power, sustainable energy systems, and smart
grids. Especially, the transformation of existing electric power systems into smart
grids is currently a global trend. The gradual increase of distributed generators in
smart grids indicates a wide and important role for power electronic converters in
the electric power system, also with the increased use of power electronics devices
(nonlinear loads) and motor loadings, low cost, low-loss and high-performance
shunt current quality compensators are highly demanded by power customers to
solve current quality problems caused by those loadings.
The large-scale deployment of the smart grid (SG) paradigm could play a strategic role in
supporting the evolution of conventional electrical grids toward active, flexible and self-
healing web energy networks composed of distributed and cooperative energy resources.
From a conceptual point of view, the SG is the convergence of information and
operational technologies applied to the electric grid, providing sustainable options to
customers and improved security. Advances in research on SGs could increase the
efficiency of modern electrical power systems by: (i) supporting the massive penetration
of small-scale distributed and dispersed generators; (ii) facilitating the integration of
pervasive synchronized metering systems; (iii) improving the interaction and cooperation
between the network components; and (iv) allowing the wider deployment of self-healing
and proactive control/protection paradigms.
