Abstract
Energy Internet, a futuristic evolution of electricity system, is conceptualized as an energy sharing network. Its features, such as plug-and-play mechanism, real-time bidirectional flow of energy, information, and money can lead to significant benefits and innovation in electricity production and utilization. Energy Internet integrates small-scale renewable energy systems, electric loads, storage devices, and electric vehicles for effective transaction of power backed by emerging technologies such as Internet of Things, vehicle-to-grid, and blockchain. At present, there is no scaled-up working model of Energy Internet, and literature is scarce, which makes the research in this domain significant, novel, and timely. Given this, an attempt is made to develop the conceptual model of an Energy Internet, elaborate its structure and components, and discuss its operational principles. First, a comprehensive overview of Energy Internet is presented along with its aptness as a future evolution of electricity system. Second, concepts, architectures, and features that underpin Energy Internet are outlined. Third, concept of ‘Energy Intranet’ is introduced to denote the scaled-down version of Energy Internet, which embodies energy prosumers and local energy markets to form a local energy cluster. Finally, discussion is presented on the network structure of Energy Internet, relevance of emerging technologies and innovative operational mechanisms.
Highlights
Overdependence on fossil fuels to meet the growing energy demand has led to several negative outcomes, such as depletion of natural resources, increased pollution, imminent climate change, extreme weather conditions, human sufferings, and turbulent geopolitics
We believe that the transformation of legacy electricity system to an Energy Internet is expected to be like the evolution that took place in information internet
The possibility to optimally schedule energy flow between energy prosumers. They considered electricity and gas of developing an energy market using Energy Internet was explored at a later stage, which led to coupling model for residential and industrial prosumers participating the energy market
Summary
Overdependence on fossil fuels to meet the growing energy demand has led to several negative outcomes, such as depletion of natural resources, increased pollution, imminent climate change, extreme weather conditions, human sufferings, and turbulent geopolitics. Recent evolution of energy router as a prime single device solution for serving multiple purposes such as metering, communication, voltage regulation, and synchronization of local renewable energy generators is a significant way forward Emerging technologies, such as big-data analytics, cloud computing, Internet of Things (IoT), and blockchain have wide possibilities in facilitating synchronization of renewable energy systems with national grid as well as energy trade in distributed energy systems in an open platform. Energy Internet integrates a wide spectrum of energy systems (large-scale, small-scale, variable, and base load power systems) with the support of advanced technology infrastructures Such a system necessitates radical transformation in the business processes and service model [13].
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