We designed a system to produce atmospheric hybrid cold-discharge plasma (HCP) based on microcorona discharge on a single dielectric barrier and applied it to inactivate microorganisms that commonly attach the rice seed husk. The cold-plasma treatment modified the surface of the rice seeds, resulting in accelerated germination and enhanced water imbibition. The treatment can operate under air-based ambient conditions without the need for a vacuum. The cold-plasma treatment completely inactivated pathogenic fungi and other microorganisms, enhancing the germination percentage and seedling quality. The final germination percentage of the treated rice seeds was ∼98%, whereas that of the nontreated seeds was ∼90%. Microcorona discharge on a single dielectric barrier provides a nonaggressive cold plasma that can be applied to organic materials without causing thermal and electrical damage. The hybrid nonthermal plasma is cost effective and consumes relatively little power, making it suitable for the surface sterilization and disinfection of organic and biological materials with large-scale compatibility.

Renewable energy sources (RESs), such as wind and solar generations, equip inverters to connect to the microgrids. These inverters do not have any rotating mass, thus lowering the overall system inertia. This low system inertia issue could affect the microgrid stability and resiliency in the situation of uncertainties. Today's microgrids will become unstable if the capacity of RESs become larger and larger, leading to the weakening of microgrid stability and resilience. This paper addresses a new concept of a microgrid control incorporating a virtual inertia system based on the model predictive control (MPC) to emulate virtual inertia into the microgrid control loop, thus stabilizing microgrid frequency during high penetration of RESs. The additional controller of virtual inertia is applied to the microgrid, employing MPC with virtual inertia response. System modeling and simulations are carried out using MATLAB/Simulink ® software. The simulation results confirm the superior robustness and frequency stabilization effect of the proposed MPC-based virtual inertia control in comparison to the fuzzy logic system and conventional virtual inertia control in a system with high integration of RESs. The proposed MPC-based virtual inertia control is able to improve the robustness and frequency stabilization of the microgrid effectively.

Maintaining frequency stability of low inertia microgrids with high penetration of renewable energy sources (RESs) is a critical challenge. Solving this challenge, the inertia of microgrids would be enhanced by virtual inertia control-based energy storage systems. However, in such systems, the virtual inertia constant is fixed and selection of its value will significantly affect frequency stability of microgrids under different penetration levels of RESs. Higher frequency oscillations may occur due to the fixed virtual inertia constant or unsuitable selection of its value. To overcome such a problem and provide adaptive inertia control, this paper proposes a self-adaptive virtual inertia control system using fuzzy logic for ensuring stable frequency stabilization, which is required for successful microgrid operation in the presence of high RESs penetration. In this concept, the virtual inertia constant is automatically adjusted based on input signals of real power injection of RESs and system frequency deviations, avoiding unsuitable selection and delivering rapid inertia response. To verify the efficiency of the proposed control method, the contrastive simulation results are compared with the conventional method for serious load disturbances and various rates of RESs penetration. The proposed control method shows remarkable performance in transient response improvement and fast damping of oscillations, preserving robustness of operation. INDEX TERMS Frequency control, fuzzy logic, intelligent control, islanded microgrid, virtual inertia control, virtual synchronous generator

Future high-speed electronic devices rely on the integration of hot-carrier generation and short transit time. The combination of a graphene–metal electrode can enable an extremely high ballistic electron emission bias to the graphene mesh at ambient conditions.

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Short-circuit current is strongly related to the cost of apparatus and the efficient use of power transmissions. Therefore, the introduction of Superconducting Fault Current Limiters (SFCL's) becomes an effective way for suppressing such a high short-circuit current in loop power systems. Firstly, a method to obtain a smaller SFCL capacity by observing the SFCL behavior including sub-transient and transient effects during a short circuit is proposed. Secondly, we propose using a micro-genetic algorithm (micro-GA) combined with a hierarchical genetic algorithm (HGA) to simultaneously search for the optimal location and the smallest SFCL capacity. The efficiency of the proposed method is shown by numerical examples with a loop power system. Index Terms-Hierarchical genetic algorithm (HGA), loop power system, micro-genetic algorithm (micro-GA), Superconducting Fault Current Limiter (SFCL).

Due to crisis shorta g e of electric p ower, g lobal warmin g issues and p ressure on chan g in g ener g y p roduction from coal-fired p ower to renewable ener g y, the solar ener g y is becomin g increasin g ly attractive. In Thailand, the g overnment has a pp roved ener g y de p artment p lan to increase its renewable ener g y tar g et, which will include three and sin g le p hase PV installations. This p a p er p resents a study on volta g e unbalance due to the increased roofto p PV installations on low-volta g e residential distribution system. The sin g lep hase roofto p PV model is develo p ed by Matlab/Simulink and is used in the study for analyzin g the volta g e unbalance under different installation ratin g s and locations. The obtainin g results can be used as g uidelines for electric distribution utilities to determine the maximum PVs installations in low-volta g e residential distribution systems without affectin g the p ower quality issues.Keywords-Low-volta g e residential distribution system;Sin g lep hase roofto p PV; Volta g e unbalance Fig.5. The voltage profiles of each phase when the rooftop PVs are installed.The following study cases are carried out:Case 1: The power demand of the load is at light load condition and % PV penetration is varied from 0 to 100% of the feeder capacity .The rooftop PV's installation is at only the phase A along of the loads of customers.