From smart grids to an energy internet: Assumptions, architectures and requirements

Secure and reliable delivery of energy is essential to modern society. Achieving this goal is becoming more challenging with increasing demand and declining resources. The ongoing restructuring of the rather old delivery infrastructure is an attempt to improve its performance so that energy can be utilized with higher efficiency. Smart grids are an advanced concept with a number of unique features compared to their precedents, including early detection and self healing capabilities. An implementation of smart grids is an energy Internet where energy flows from suppliers to customers like data packets do in the Internet. Apparent benefits from an energy Internet are its openness, robustness and reliability. This paper uses electricity as an example to present some key assumptions and requirements for building the energy Internet. An example is presented.