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Energy Internet has recently been "very hot" in the energy circle, with the concept of "Internet +", the traditional energy industry seems to have ushered in a wave of innovative thinking. Also in the context of the energy revolution, we must open up a new way to change the mode of energy development, and the prospects of this road in the end how? More attention has been drawn to the industry and outside.

　　"The energy Internet is a high degree of integration of multiple types of energy networks and transport networks" "The basic concept of the energy Internet and smart grid is the same, and the content can not be found in principle different" "The energy Internet is The energy Internet is a strong smart grid with ultra-high voltage grid as the backbone (channel), with clean energy transmission as the leading, global interconnection and ubiquitous," various understandings and interpretations of the energy Internet have appeared, and people are not sure what to think about it.

　　Energy Internet concept was born ten years ago

　　From 22 to 24 April, at the foot of Fragrant Hill in Beijing, a number of academicians and more than 50 experts and scholars participated in an academic conference on the theme of energy Internet. Conference parties on the concept and structure of the energy Internet, energy Internet operation mechanism and market model and other topics for in-depth discussion, which is so far China's academic community for the energy Internet at the highest level of a seminar meeting.

　　When did the concept of energy Internet come into being? Cao Junwei, a researcher at Tsinghua University's Institute of Information Technology, who has long been engaged in cross-disciplinary research on information and energy and power technologies, believes that in 2004, The Economist magazine published an article called "buildingtheenergyinternet", which is the earliest literature to formally put forward this viewpoint.

　　In 2008, Thomas Friedman, a famous American journalist and winner of three Pulitzer Prizes for journalism, introduced the energy internet in his monograph "The World is Hot, Flat and Crowded", which is also the initial exploration of the energy internet at the economics level.

　　Explorations at the technical level also took place around 2008, when Germany put forward the E-ENERGY programme, with an investment of about 140 million euros, to make full use of information and communication technologies to solve the new problems faced by the future power system dominated by distributed energy supply, with the aim of creating a brand new energy Internet from the distribution network to the circulating power grid.

　　In 2009, in the U.S. city of Dubuque, IBM and the government began to build the first smart city with an intelligent energy network, in order to create a connection between all the resources of the city, including water, electricity, oil, gas, transport, public services and so on.

　　The energy Internet has attracted widespread attention in the country, probably more because of Rifkin's book "The Third Industrial Revolution", which imagines that "in the upcoming era, we will need to create an 'energy Internet', so that hundreds of millions of people can produce green renewable energy in their homes, offices and factories". green renewable energy."

　　The concept became more widely known when Liu Zhenya, Chairman of State Grid Corporation, put forward the idea of "building a global energy internet to serve the sustainable development of human society" at an academic conference in Washington, D.C., in 2014.

　　Different Perspectives on the Energy Internet

　　Liu Zhenya proposed in his book "Global Energy Internet" that the global energy Internet is composed of transcontinental and transnational backbone grids and power grids of various voltage levels in various countries, connecting "one pole and one road" (the Arctic and the Equator) with large energy bases, adapting to the needs of accessing various distributed power sources, and being able to transmit renewable energy sources such as wind energy, solar energy and ocean energy to various types of users, as well as providing a service for the sustainable development of human society. It can transmit renewable energy such as wind energy, solar energy and ocean energy to various types of users, and is a global energy allocation platform with a wide range of services, strong configuration capability, high safety and reliability, and green and low-carbon.

　　"The energy Internet in my mind is a comprehensive energy network composed of physical systems, namely the power grid, gas network, heat network, transport network, etc." Xue Yusheng, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and honorary president of the State Grid Electric Power Academy, also offered his views.

　　Professor Yu Zitao, director of the Institute of Thermal Engineering and Power Systems at Zhejiang University, believes that the development of a high-efficiency energy network will take the route of high-efficiency gradient utilisation, in which the energy of systems that can independently output electricity, heat and cold will be used in a gradient manner, so that the comprehensive utilisation rate will reach more than 90%.

　　Academician Yu Yixin, on the other hand, said that the basic concepts of the energy Internet and the smart grid that we have already discussed are the same, and the content can not be found to be different in principle, including intelligent universal transformers such as electrical energy routers.

　　"Due to the different perspectives that everyone stands on, different understandings and views are generated, but from the academic level, it is not possible to distinguish who is right and who is wrong, because the work can be carried out from different levels." Cao Junwei told reporters that the development and construction of the energy Internet is a complex systematic project, which needs to start from the system architecture, technology research and development, standards development, policy design and other aspects and links, and the way should be to take the road of hierarchical grading, from small scale to large scale, from simple to complex, from experimental to demonstration, and then to the maturity of the promotion.

　　SmartGrid or SmarterGrid

　　Although there are a lot of views on the energy Internet, there is an obvious common point is that the smart grid will play an important role in building the energy Internet, so understanding the content of the smart grid is crucial to understanding the energy Internet.

　　In fact, the industry and outside the concept of smart grid understanding has long existed different views, whether it is smartgrid or smartergrid (smarter grid), people have their own views.

　　"The essence of the smart grid should be optimisation. The future of the grid, we can not rely mainly on people scheduling, must be through information technology and computer science for automatic regulation and control, to achieve the whole power system completely closed loop. For example, the current scheduling in Shanghai, has been initially done." Lu Qiang, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a professor at Tsinghua University, put forward the concept of smart grid with hybrid cybernetics, arguing that the entry of communication and mathematics into the classical power system gave rise to the third industrial revolution of the power system, which gave rise to the smart power system.

　　"By 2020 the State Grid Corporation will have fully built a unified 'strong smart grid' with technology and equipment fully reaching the international advanced level." According to Shu Yinbiao, general manager of the State Grid Corporation, China's smart grid includes six links in the power system, namely power generation, transmission, substation, distribution, power consumption and dispatching, and is characterised by the "smart" technologies of informatisation, digitisation, automation and interaction. China's smart grid is first of all a strong power grid, in which, with a long distance, large capacity transmission characteristics of the ultra-high voltage grid will become the core link, which is determined by the stage of China's economic development, the centralised distribution of energy characteristics.

　　"Smart grid is a development goal." Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, the Southern Power Grid Corporation Expert Committee Director Li Li Li, said in an interview with reporters, the development of energy and electricity have 3 laws to follow, including the law of science and technology development, the law of social development and the law of market development.

　　China's famous power system analysis, planning and simulation experts, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering Yu Yixin believes that the smart grid will change the way people live and work like the Internet, the realization of the smart grid requires a long transition, sustained research and development and a variety of technologies for long-term coexistence.

　　What is certain is that in the context of the third industrial revolution, the integration of power grid and information technology is an inevitable trend, whether we focus on the current smartergrid or our ideal smartgrid, to create a highly efficient grid will be the core content of the energy Internet.

　　The impact of Internet thinking on energy

　　Energy is a traditional industry, the Internet is an emerging industry, the integration of the two will certainly bring the concept of collision, the concept of change may be the beginning of technical and institutional change.

　　"The traditional power industry by the natural monopoly characteristics and security constraints, the sensitivity of information technology is not enough." Li Li Li academician interviewed by a reporter expressed such a view.

　　"If the grid intelligent or in the traditional grid architecture through information technology and intelligent means, to solve the problem of equipment utilisation, security and reliability, power quality and renewable energy access, the fundamental difference between the energy Internet is the use of Internet concepts, methods and technologies to achieve a major change in the energy infrastructure architecture itself, making the energy of open interconnection and exchange Sharing can be as convenient as sharing information on the Internet." Cao Junwei said.

　　Openness, interconnection, reciprocity and sharing are the characteristics of Internet thinking, while the traditional energy industry places more emphasis on production, professionalism and security. A number of experts believe that the development of distributed energy has given the energy industry an opportunity to transform, with the traditional power industry emphasises the development mode of generation, transmission, distribution and transformation, distributed energy makes the energy flow, power flow changes, the operation of the local microgrid needs to be open, sharing and other concepts embedded in the energy and power industry needs to face.

　　The Internet is invisible and borderless, and the development of energy Internet will also be open and ceilingless, only a large amount of innovation and practice will bring about a brand new energy industry.