Inaugural editorial: Energy Conversion and Economics

Abstract

With the ever-increasing population and continuous rising of living standards around the globe, energy demand has been growing rapidly in the past several decades. Two major risks need to be managed: the leveling off of the fossil fuel production and the worsening greenhouse effect. This is why scientists and engineers are concentrating their research on alternative energies, especially green ones. A key challenge related to future energy transmission and utilization is the capability to convert and store different kinds of energy resources. The past decade has witnessed some important scientific discoveries and technological developments, including sophisticated methods and advanced techniques for the planning, design, operation, and control of multiple energy systems and energy conversion. These developments promote the enhancement and refinement of many kinds of energy-conversion devices and multiple energy systems. In addition to technical developments, economics is another key aspect for sustainable development of energy-conversion devices and multiple energy systems. Since 1990s, power industry restructuring and electricity markets have been implemented in many countries with an objective to enhance the economics of electric power system planning and operation. In recent years, market-based planning and operation, as well as management and regulation of multiple energy systems with energy-conversion devices included have attracted extensive concerns, but have not yet been systematically investigated. It is hence of great significance to devote research efforts on the economics of energy-conversion devices and multiple energy systems. Given the above stated backgrounds, Energy Conversion and Economics (ECE) aims to be an internationally distinguished multi-disciplinary journal, covering technical, economic, management, and policy issues in many subjects of energy engineering, electrical engineering, and transportation engineering, and publishes original articles on latest advances, as well as review articles, on various aspects of energy generation, energy conversion, energy transition, energy storage, energy consumption, and electrified transportation, as well as energy policies, energy economics, energy management, energy markets, energy efficiency in multiple energy systems with various scales and coverage. Energy Conversion Technologies, Practices, and Applications Conventional and Green Energy Generation and Conversion Technologies Engineering Practices of Advanced Energy Conversion Technologies Applications of Energy Conversion: Energy Storage Systems, Power to Gas technologies, Electrified Transportation, Charging, and Discharging Infrastructure of Electric Vehicles Comprehensive Energy Conversion and System Integration Planning, Design, Operation, and Control of Comprehensive Energy Conversion Systems Optimal Employment of Various Kinds of Energy Resources with Appropriate Combination of Energy Conversion Technologies Smart Components, Devices, and System Integration for Energy Conversion Energy Utilization and Environmental Conservation Energy Consumption and Energy Transition in Energy Conversion Philosophy Energy Efficiency in Energy Generation, Conversion, Storage, and Utilization Environmental Impacts of Advanced Energy Conversion Technologies Information and Artificial Intelligence Applications Information and Communication Technology Applications in Energy Conversion Systems Internet of Thing (IoT) Applications in Energy Conversion Systems Big Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence Applications in Energy Conversion Systems Energy Economics and Management Energy Policy for Energy Conversion Energy Management in Energy Conversion Systems Economic Analysis in Energy Conversion Systems Market Mechanism Design and Market Operation Analysis for Efficient Energy Conversion Regulatory Issues in Energy Conversion The editorial board of ECE comprises leading scientists, experts, and scholars from 13 countries in both academia and industry world. The global distribution of the editorial board members and the wide range of covered academic subjects have laid a solid foundation for ECE to become a first-class academic journal in the field of energy and economics. ECE will adopt a rigorous and prompt review process to ensure that each manuscript receives a fair and unbiased peer review, and the target time from submission to first decision is set at 4 weeks. Open Access publication extends the reach and academic impact of authors’ work. Five papers are selected for publication in this inaugural issue. We want to thank all the authors and peer reviewers for their contributions. In the first paper, Pan et al. conduct a systematic review of long-distance offshore wind power integration in China. This paper summarizes three types of integration schemes and their applicability, analyzes the characteristics of the voltage source converter based high voltage direct current (VSC-HVDC) integration scheme and associated key technical problems in practice. The first milestone long-distance offshore wind power integration VSC-HVDC project in China and recommendations on long-distance offshore wind power development in China are presented. Chen et al. present a two-stage stochastic operation method for a multi-energy microgrid (MEMG) to optimally schedule distributed generators, electric boilers, electrical chillers, and storage devices considering system technical constraints and to handle various uncertainties associated with renewable energy generation, electricity tariff, and load demands. Simulation results show that the proposed method can effectively reduce the operational cost, and at the same time, maintain the robustness of the MEMG operation and thermal comfort of customers. Han et al. propose a model combining the power flow, carbon emission flow, and a statistical demand function model to analyze the carbon tax incidence in a transmission network. The results of case study demonstrate that consumers share more burden of the carbon tax in all carbon tax collection methods. Moreover, the proportion of the tax burden and the emission reduction effect are different among these methods and are dependent to some extent on renewable generation capacity. Lin et al. use a simplified Guangdong power system model to simulate the electricity market in Southern China from 2019 to 2028, and analyze the impacts of integrating large-scale offshore wind power into the Southern China power grid on Guangdong province. Experimental results show that the integration of offshore wind power farms could reduce the Locational Marginal Prices (LMPs) as well as the weighted average spot price. The power flow on transmission lines with nodes connected to offshore wind farms will increase and the increase rate is higher in cases with higher demand. In addition, the increased EUE (Expected Unsupplied Energy) indicates that the integration of large-scale offshore wind power farms could impair the reliable operation of the power grid. Adnan Hayat et al. propose solar leasing as an option to realize a community solar project (CSP) for a multi-housing residential complex. The considered key design parameters are the rating and penetration level of rooftop photovoltaic (RPV) systems, as well as the capacity and the charge/discharge rate of the employed battery energy storage systems (BESs), in addition to the number of the houses that have leased their roofs and the energy trading tariffs. Diverse numerical and sensitivity analyses demonstrate that a CSP can be designed to achieve the desired techno-economic objectives by employing a combination of the proposed indices. We would like to take this opportunity to thank authors and reviewers again for their efforts and contributions. We are confident that ECE will act as an exciting forum for researchers around the world to share their new findings and innovative ideas. We welcome new submissions to ECE as well as any suggestions or comments that will promote experience of authors and readers of ECE. Editors-in-Chief Z. Y. Dong received PhD degree from the University of Sydney, Australia, in 1999. He is currently a professor and director of UNSW Digital Grid Futures Institute, and ARC Research Hub for Integrated Energy Storage Solutions, at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney. His previous roles include Head of the School of Electrical and Information Engineering, The University of Sydney, and Ausgrid Chair Professor and Director of the Centre for Intelligent Electricity Networks for the Australia's Smart Grid, Smart City national demonstration project. His research interest includes smart grid, power system planning, power system security, load modeling, renewable energy systems, electricity market, and computational intelligence and its application in power engineering. He is editor of a number of IEEE and IET journals. He is a fellow of IEEE. Guangfu Tang received his BEng degree in Electrical Engineering from Xi'an Jiaotong University, Shaanxi, China, in 1990, and his MEng and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Institute of Plasma Physics, The Chinese Academy of Sciences (ASIPP), in 1993 and 1996, respectively. He is president of the Global Energy Interconnection Research Institute (GEIRI) and Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE). His research focus is on high power electronics technology for power system application, including FACTS, LCC-HVDC, VSC-HVDC, and DC grids. He is currently a member of B4.AG4 (HVDC system performance strategy advisor group) in CIGRE and a member of the IEEE/PES N. Hingorani FACTS committee as well as the Custom Power Award committee. Fushuan Wen has been a full professor in Zhejiang University, China, since 1997, and is a part-time distinguished professor in Hangzhou Dianzi University, China. He was a university distinguished professor in South China University of Technology from 2005 to 2009, a professor in Universiti Teknologi Brunei from 2014 to 2017, and an Otto Monsted Foundation Guest Professor in Technical University of Denmark in 2016. In addition, he has been undertaking various teaching, research and visiting appointments in National University of Singapore, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, University of Hong Kong, University of New South Wales, Queensland University of Technology, Nanyang Technological University, Murdoch University, Tallinn University of Technology, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO). He is listed in “Most Cited Chinese Researchers” in five consecutive years from 2015 to 2019 by Elsevier. He serves as the editor, subject editor, and associate editor of several international journals, and the deputy editor-in-chief of Automation of Electric Power Systems.