Design and Application of Energy Router to Realise Energy Internet

Abstract

With the rapid development of smart grid and information technology, Energy Internet has been attracting increasing attention from government as well industry. Some landmark proposals in development of Energy Internet concept are reviewed and some basic features have been discussed. These include physical connection, protocol design, safety rules and the most important one, energy router design. Within an Energy Internet, energy router is the key element to receive, control, transmit, transfer, store and distribute energies, just like what a conventional router does in telecommunications. The features of Energy Internet, a future energy development objective, are hence concluded. Energy hub, which was proposed as a theoretical tool to analyse power flow within systems of multiple energy carriers, is transformed and introduced to develop energy router. The energy router is designed as a control centre on the distribution side. Based on conventional concept of energy hub, new features and improvements, including combining information processing unit, adding renewable energy as input power, proposing cost deduction solutions, and redesigning the storage system, have been added in designing energy router, which is to realize the final target of Energy Internet. In the end, with the consideration of market conditions, energy routers can be constructed based on existed industrial foundation, including in the markets that are controlled by monopoly electricity enterprises. Feasibility analysis and related advantages of developing energy routers are provided in the paper.