Terrestrial and Offshore Islanded Energy Systems

Dear Colleagues,

At no time in our history has the energy technology landscape been broader or evolved more quickly. Advances in materials sciences, manufacturing processes, and economies of scale have brought many energy options from the fringes to the front line. That said, while renewables increase their rate of penetration in many markets, fossil and nuclear assets continue to overwhelmingly dominate most supply mixes. Environmental concerns juxtaposed with the increasing energy appetite of a developing world form a significant challenge for the designers of the energy systems of tomorrow.

The integration of newer intermittent generators and distributed energy systems into complex, centralized legacy architectures can present challenges when trying to evaluate the success of novel generation, storage, and management technologies. Often, many existing market structures, originally developed for fossil infrastructures, are not properly equipped to value the services provided by these nascent technologies. In contrast, energy systems of isolated or island communities often have fewer dimensions of complexity. Market operations are simpler; it is thus easier to imagine decoupling their influence from the potential success of emerging technologies. Isolated and island communities can thus provide a unique opportunity to demonstrate innovative technical and economic architectures for new energy thinking.

This Special Issue will have an overarching focus on clean, resilient, and flexible energy technologies that embody or foster the integration of generation and storage. Of particular interest are applications for island/coastal/offshore environments. Applications in isolated “islanded” terrestrial regions are also of interest. Specific subtopics include but are not limited to the following:

• Coupled or integrated wind-storage systems;
• Coupled or integrated solar-storage systems;
• Multi-purpose offshore energy platforms (energy generation, storage, ancillary services—desalination, agriculture, aquaculture, and habitation);
• Coastal/offshore specialized energy generation (floating wind, floating solar, tidal, and wave);
• Coastal/offshore specialized energy storage (underwater compressed air energy storage, terrestrial pumped hydro, submerged pumped hydro, and electrochemical batteries);
• Power to fuel technologies;
• Emerging power transmission technologies;
• Specialized market structures and/or financial tools designed to enable clean, resilient, and flexible energy systems.

Prof. Rupp Carriveau
Dr. Zhiwen Wang
Guest Editors

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• island energy systems
• distributed energy systems
• offshore resources
• integrated coastal energy systems
• energy systems modeling
• new energy market structures and financial tools