Electric Spring and Smart Load: Technology, System-Level Impact, and Opportunities

Abstract

The increasing use of renewable energy sources to combat climate change comes with the challenge of power imbalance and instability issues in emerging power grids. To mitigate power fluctuation arising from the intermittent nature of renewables, electric spring (ES) has been proposed as a fast demand-side management technology. Since its original conceptualization in 2011, many versions and variants of ESs have emerged and industrial evaluations have begun. This article provides an update of the existing ES topologies, their associated control methodologies, and studies from the device level to the power system level. Future trends of ESs in large-scale infrastructures are also addressed.