On a Future for Smart Inverters with Integrated System Functions

The modern electric power grid is gradually evolving to include high-penetration power electronics in a distributed architecture that will pose pressing new challenges on power quality, system control, and operation. The state-of-the-art smart inverters for solar photovoltaics may not be sufficient to address some of the stability and control challenges such as harmonic resonances due to the interactions of multiple power electronics converters. This paper discusses a future of smart inverters with integrated system functions and its associated challenges and identifies smart inverter research trends and features in the context of flexible control architectures. Future power electronics research will shift from hardware solutions to more control solutions with integrated system functions under distributed power grid scenarios with small-scale power electronics interfaced with distributed generations and loads.