As the penetration of distributed generation (DG) systems in the grid is increasing, the challenge of combining large numbers of DGs in the power systems has to be carefully clarified and managed. The control strategy and management concept of the interconnected systems should be flexible and reliable to handle the various types of DGs. This can be suitably met by microgrids. This paper introduces the microgrid structure and elements and states the main objectives that should be achieved by the microgrid controllers and each DG controllers in both operation modes (grid-connected and island mode). It also presents the challenges of having multiple DG units in a microgrid in terms of accurate power control/sharing, voltage and frequency regulation, power management between DGs, different renewable energy sources integration and deployment, seamless mode transfer and the modelling issues. The centralized and decentralized control techniques as potential solutions have been discussed and compared by highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of each. Furthermore, the recent control techniques for drooped AC microgrid and the main proposed solutions and contributions in the literature have been exposed to finally overcome the droop control limitations and obtain a flexible and smart distributed power system.

The Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) has recognized ensuring a good supply of talented Power Electronics engineers as a challenge. Inability to recruit high-quality engineers would drive companies out of the UK. The use of outdated or inappropriate teaching materials at universities has been identified as a gap to address this challenge. Some academic institutions have well-recognised power electronics, machines and drives (PEMD) programmes where their undergraduate courses are also linked to their research interests. However, other academic institutions do not provide that depth of knowledge required by PEMD industry, considering it as optional knowledge and do not have suitable training materials. This project responds to contribute to filling the gaps in skills, talent and training for the PEMD industry by developing a guidance on a developed framework for Power Electronics curriculum, which is supported by industrial-oriented knowledge and inputs. The developed framework has been designed to fit other disciplines also and a sample curriculum has been provided.

Low-gain buck converters will enable low voltage loads to access high voltage DC sources by a single stage converter at very low duty cycles. SiC MOSFETs are still limited to 1.7kV commercially and by seriesing them with adequate gate driving strategy, high voltages can be switched. This paper proposes a driving circuit for series SiC MOSFETs to block higher voltages. The driving circuit provides negative off-state voltage and turn on/off transitions in less than 100ns. The low-gain buck converter performance is assessed when using a single IGBT switch and series SiC MOSFETs. A simulation is implemented and shows the superiority of the proposed driven series SiC MOSFETs with distributed voltage and thermal stresses.