Technologies, Vol. 14, Pages 112: Resilient Grid Architectures for High Renewable Penetration: Electrical Engineering Strategies for 2030 and Beyond

Technologies doi: 10.3390/technologies14020112

Authors:
Hilmy Awad
Ehab H. E. Bayoumi

The global shift toward decarbonized power systems is driving unprecedented penetration of variable renewable energy sources, especially wind and solar PV. Legacy grid architectures, built around centralized, dispatchable synchronous generation, are ill-suited to manage the bidirectional power flows, reduced inertia, and new stability constraints introduced by inverter-based resources. Existing research offers deep but fragmented insights into individual elements of this transition, such as advanced power electronics, microgrids, or market design, but rarely integrates them into a coherent architectural vision for resilient, high-renewable grids. This review closes that gap by synthesizing technical, architectural, and institutional perspectives into a unified framework for resilient grid design toward 2030 and beyond. First, it traces the evolution from traditional hierarchical grids to smart, prosumer-centric, and modular multi-layer architectures, highlighting the implications for reliability and resilience. Second, it critically examines the core technical challenges of high VRES penetration, including stability, power quality, protection, and operational planning in converter-dominated systems. Third, it reviews the enabling roles of advanced power electronics, hierarchical control and wide-area monitoring, microgrids, and hybrid AC/DC networks. Case studies from Germany, China, and Egypt are used to distil context-dependent pathways and common design principles. Building on these insights, the paper proposes a scalable multi-layer framework spanning physical, data, control, and regulatory/market layers. The framework is intended to guide researchers, planners, and policymakers in designing resilient, converter-dominated grids that are not only technically robust but also economically viable and socially sustainable.

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