Aiming at the traditional method for configuration optimization of integrated energy system (IES) that does not consider the impact of the way the energy devices are configured (including the installed combination, installed capacity, and operation strategy) and just optimizes the total installed capacity according to the system energy requirement, which will give rise to some problems such as high energy consumption, low efficiency and energy waste, this paper puts forward the innovative and extended energy hub (EH) to study the coupling characteristics of multi-energy flow, and proposes a configuration optimization method of IES based on EH. The proposed method establishes an EH-based combination model of gas turbines for selecting combination schemes of multiple gas turbines, and then builds an EH-based configuration optimization model of IES for determining the optimal configuration schemes of energy devices by considering the economy, energy efficiency, and environmental benefits. Finally, the results from the two schemes compared in the research case illustrate that the scheme considering configuration optimization of gas turbines decreases the investment cost and the CO2 emissions by 8.9% and 8.16%, respectively, and increases the comprehensive energy efficiency from 0.789 to 0.8097. It is further proved that the effectiveness of the proposed method and the research significance of the configuration optimization. Highlights A configuration optimization method of IES is proposed based on EH, which can achieve economic, efficient, and environmentally friendly operation of the system. The concept of EH is adopted to model energy devices separately, and the innovative and extended EH is proposed to study the coupling characteristics of multiple energy flows. EH-based operation configuration model and combination model of gas turbines are established to optimize the installed capacity and combination, ensuring that the gas turbines can flexibly adapt to the diversified energy demand.