“Optimal Control and Communication Strategies in Multi-Energy Generation Grid” written by Prof. Guojie Li's group was published in the IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials on Aug. 17, 2023. The first author is Dr. Muhammad Waseem Khan, who is a Postdoctoral Researcher under Prof. Guojie Li. Prof. Guojie Li is the corresponding author, and Prof. Keyou Wang is a co-author. The publication of this paper highlights the progress in terms of academic level and international influence of the Department of Electrical Engineering.

The IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials is an online journal published by the IEEE Communications Society for tutorials and surveys covering all aspects of the communications field . It focuses on integrating and adding understanding to the existing literature on communications, putting results in context. It is the premier source of peer-reviewed, comprehensive tutorials and surveys, and the pointer to further sources. The journal has an impact factor of 35.6 in 2023, ranking among the top of all SCI journals under IEEE.

The integration of multiple distributed generating units (DGUs) in multi-energy generation grids (MEGGs) are becoming more attractive for offering an optimal solution for reliable and environmentally friendly power supply to off-grid remote areas with reasonably lower costs. The deployment of MEGGs aims to accommodate high penetrations of renewables-based DGUs to actively coordinate with the participating conventional units in the grid arrangements for enhancing the overall operations of the network. However, due to the presence of several DERs with unpredictable generation from the renewables and asymmetrical consumer loads, the communication and supervision tasks become more complex and unceasingly leading to stability, efficiency, reliability, resilience, and robustness issues in grid arrangements. Compared with traditional centralized-based control, the employment of communication-based optimal distributed control technique split the computational flow into subparts that significantly reduced the communication complexity, which delivers a proficient solution to exploit the coordinated operational advantages of multiple DGUs contributing in MEGGs.

This paper presents different grid architectures and provides a comprehensive survey of optimal control techniques and communication strategies used in MEGGs. Firstly, organized and systematic discussions related to energy production and distribution with various grid architectures and technologies are elaborated. The DGUs integration for sustainable power generation, unit sizing, and protection challenges in MEGG are identified. Secondly, different optimal control techniques and operational management strategies along with their prominent features and impact on MEGG stability are illustrated. In addition, multiple advanced intelligent control strategies are realized and their essential aspects and merits in the distribution grid are summarized. Thirdly, different promising communication networks and technologies with optimal communication protocols and standards along with their computational mechanism and potential operational objectives in MEGGs are discussed. The enormous adoption of communication infrastructures generated inherent communication reliability difficulties, thus, the communication strategies features and reliability issues concerning data availability and accuracy, privacy and security, and time synchronization with respect to control decisions are classified. Lastly, key research gaps are highlighted and some recommendations along with a complete guide to scientists and manipulators are provided for possible improvements in handling the MEGG control, security, and communication network requirements.