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Low-carbon generation has an important part to play in sustainable energy supply in the 21st century. Renewable energy technologies hold great promise to meet humanity´s energy needs. A key component of this is the integration of renewable energy resources into the utility grid. Photovoltaic power production promises to be a clean, widely applicable renewable energy source available for energy production. As most of the electric power supply is via a centralized electric grid, it is virtually certain that truly widespread use of photovoltaics will be in the form of distributed power generation interconnected with these grids. Power electronics is the key of future developments of the renewable energy sources as well as storage devices. This book investigates the interfacing between photovoltaic power systems and the utility grid. It focuses on the design, cost, and reliability issues related to such intelligent power electronic interface. This book is interesting to engineering students, beginners and advanced researchers who are involved in state-of-art renewable energy technologies and power conversion.

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received B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Elect. Eng. from Minia Univ., Egypt, in 2000 and 2004, respectively. He is currently working toward a PhD. degree at Kyushu Univ., Japan. His research interests include Power Electronics, Renewable Energy Applications, Electromagnetic Compatibility, Artificial Intelligence, and Digital Control.

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