Work

Issues, perspectives and solutions on grid integration of renewable energy — A review

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Power generation from renewable energy sources are gaining importance to achieve the objectives of decarbonization to address the issues of climate change. However, when compared with conventional power plants, share of renewable energy made a difference and has posed various challenges, especially in the power generation system. After a rapid acceleration since March 2024, the total installed capacity reached 500 GW from 190 GW in late 2025 as per the report published in physical achievements portal of ministry of new and renewable energy page. A huge 30% growth in renewable with total capacity crossing 250 GW driven by solar share alone of 135.8 GW in less than 2 years. The non-fossil fuel energy also includes 54.51 GW, large hydro of 50.51 GW and remaining is covered by biomass, small hydro and nuclear power. The Ministry of Renewable Energy has long term aim of achieving 500 GW of renewable energy capacity by the year 2030. The power system performance characteristics can become unpredictable because of some definite challenges such as maintaining the frequency and voltage for system stability due to high grid penetration, transmission line loss capacity or insufficient and sporadic generation capacity of renewable sources. Further, the notable vulnerability of generation systems in keeping up with the power requirement at any given time frame necessitates the integration of robust energy storage options to support instantaneous load variations. To address grid stability and reliability issue due to lack of inertia, weak grid support, and intermittency of renewable energy the synchronous generators, bipolar voltage source converter based multi-terminal high voltage direct current, and energy storage are used respectively. The three port inverter can mange the source, storage and battery simultaneously that ensures grid stability and reliability. Further appropriate grid management mechanism, new business ideas, markets and incentives etc. addresses the financial challenges like high entry cost and develop rules of road for private sectors. Collectively, the transition from unidirectional fossil-fuel-based system to a multi-directional renewable-dominated system requires more investigation on above mentioned areas. Rather than providing a broad survey, this review establishes a functional mapping between the systemic susceptibility of low-inertia grids and the corrective potential of emerging innovative materials, state of art electronic devices, High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC), storage technology, three port convertors, and market framework. This study analyzes these domains to evaluate the combined efficacy in grid stabilization with high renewable penetration. The challenges, possible solutions and recent developments toward smarter power grids and enhanced distributed generating capacities as the inevitable components for sustainable energy future are compiled and reviewed in this paper.

Source: Energy Reports

DOI: 10.1016/j.egyr.2026.109603

Authors: S. Architram, Jahnavi Vikash Jain, Sonam Shrivastava, S. Albert Alexander

Institution: Vellore Institute of Technology University

Language: English

Topic: Power Systems and Renewable Energy

Subfield: Energy Engineering and Power Technology

Field: Energy

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDGs: Affordable and clean energy, Climate action, Industry, innovation and infrastructure

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $3,040