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Solar power is highly abundant, relatively reliable, and not limited to a geographic region, making it one of the most important renewable energy sources. Catering for a clean and green energy system, solar energy will be an active player in the future mixed power grid that is also undergoing a significant change. Beyond this energy transition, the still declining cost of the solar technology has become an important driving force for more solar-powered systems. However, high penetration of solar-powered systems also brings technical challenges to the entire energy systems. In order to fully address those issues, the technological properties of solar power should be investigated. Thus, the basics of solar power technology will be introduced and discussed in this chapter.

A continuous booming installation of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems has been witnessed worldwide. It is mainly driven by the imperative demand of “clean” power generation from renewables. Grid-connected PV systems will thus become an even more active player in the future mixed power systems, which are linked together by a vast of power electronics converters and the power grid. In order to achieve a reliable and efficient power generation from PV systems, more stringent demands have been imposed on the entire PV system. It, in return, advances the development of the power converter technology in PV systems. This chapter thus gives an overview of the advancement of power electronics converters in single-phase grid-connected PV systems, being commonly used in residential applications. Demands to single-phase grid-connected PV systems and the general control strategies are also addressed in this chapter.

The electric generator and its power electronics interface for wind turbines (WTs) have evolved rapidly toward higher reliability and reduced cost of energy in the last 40 years. This chapter describes the up-to-date electric generators existing in the wind power industry, namely, the doubly fed induction generator, the cage rotor induction generator, and the synchronous generator with DC or permanent magnet excitation. The operating principle, performance, optimal design, and the modeling and control of the machine-side converter for each kind of generator are adressed and evaluated. In view of the fact that individual power rating of WTs has increased to around 10 MW, generator design and control technologies required to reach this power rating are discussed.