Global climate change is one of the most serious challenges around the globe. To reduce the emission of greenhouse gases while accommodating the growing demand for energy supply, energy and gases industries in many countries are making great efforts in transiting to more sustainable and environmental-friendly energy systems. During this transition, sustainable and renewable generation technologies, advanced operation strategies, and flexible energy storage and demand response schemes are key factors of enhancing the efficiency as well as reducing the carbon footprints of power industries. The integration of these new technologies has given rise to the concept of the “Smart Grid”, which intelligently and efficiently coordinates available generation, transmission, distribution, and consumption resources.
The fast development of a vast number of technologies, e.g. renewable generation, power electronics, energy storage, communication, and control, has laid the foundation of a smart grid, which has become a very hot topic for both academic and industrial communities in recent years. However, the implementation of smart grid technologies is still not well explored. One of the major challenges facing the development of a smart grid is the management of a high penetration level of fluctuating renewable energy generation. The intermittency of renewable energy generation outputs contradicts the requirement of real-time power production and consumption balance in the power industry. Energy storage represents an ideal solution to accommodating the variability of renewable energy generation, but its expensive cost has greatly limited its commercial applications.
