Shi Dan: Research on some theoretical issues of energy internet

China Energy Storage Network News: The major National Social Science Fund bidding project "China's Electricity Interconnection with Neighboring Countries - Taking Russia and Southeast Asian Countries as Examples" hosted by Shi Dan, a researcher at the Institute of Industrial Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, was completed in May 2017, and the final result was a 300,000-word research report. Taking Russia and Southeast Asian countries as examples, the report analyzed their energy resource conditions, electricity markets and demands, and the status of electricity interconnection with China. On this basis, it analyzed the synergistic relationship between promoting interconnection with neighboring countries and China's power system reform, and put forward suggestions for deepening the reform of China's power grid management system. The research report integrates theories and research perspectives from different disciplines, systematically studies the theoretical and practical issues that need to be paid attention to in electricity interconnection, and has important theoretical and practical significance for China to promote the construction of the "Belt and Road".

In addition to analyzing the energy resource conditions, power market environment and power demand of Russia and Southeast Asian countries, the status of power interconnection with my country and the level of electricity prices, "Power Interconnection between China and Neighboring Countries - Taking Russia and Southeast Asian Countries as Examples" also studies some theoretical issues involved in power interconnection and energy Internet. The author believes that the theoretical issues that need to be studied in power interconnection and energy Internet include: the basic conditions of power interconnection and energy Internet, the characteristics of energy Internet, the characteristics of network governance, the governance structure of power grid interconnection, the special issues of power trade, and the development ideas of interconnection with neighboring countries.

Cooperation is the prerequisite for promoting energy internet

Realizing power interconnection with neighboring countries is essentially a matter of cooperation. If we talk about cooperation in terms of politics and diplomacy, but confrontation and competition in terms of economy, it is possible that the inconsistency of economic interests will affect political cooperation and interfere with the process of my country's peaceful rise and the great dream of the "two centenary goals". In recent years, there has been a call in the academic community that economics needs to move from the traditional resource allocation theory to the cooperation theory. Economics with cooperation theory as the core is more in line with the facts of human development in a certain sense. Unlike mainstream economics, cooperation theory does not focus on competition and specializes in studying the effective allocation of scarce resources, but focuses on human sociality. Cooperation theory believes that the reason why humans can achieve today's achievements is not because humans have the same competitive nature as other animals, but on the contrary, it is due to the characteristics that are different from other animals - a high degree of cooperation ability. Cooperation theory is based on brain science experiments. The experimental results systematically confirm that people do not have homogeneous self-interest preferences. People's cooperation consciousness, like competition consciousness, can be induced and is deeply influenced by the living environment, social norms and cultural traditions. Some people call the theory of cooperation the theory of strong reciprocity. The theory of strong reciprocity studies the altruistic behavior of strong reciprocators who are willing to pay personal costs to punish non-cooperators and "free riders" in order to maintain cooperation. The theory of strong reciprocity emphasizes the diversity and social nature of human behavior motivations, which is more realistic than the single "economic man hypothesis" of traditional economics that abstracts "people". The progress of the research on the theory of strong reciprocity shows that the assumptions of economic theory need to be expanded and improved, and the strong reciprocity of "people" should be emphasized. Over-emphasizing "personal greed" and the null hypothesis is inconsistent with the fact that people have heterogeneous social preferences. Stimulating the strong reciprocity of "people" is particularly important for promoting social cooperation, and should become an important part of the current international social governance and international cooperation.

Similarities and Differences between Internet and Energy Internet

In the energy Internet, the energy network changes from the original one-way transmission to parallel multi-directional transmission, and people and enterprises can transmit surplus energy to other consumers. Through the Internet information platform, energy suppliers, consumers, and energy suppliers and consumers can cooperate with each other through information exchange to maximize energy efficiency. From the perspective of cost, the telecommunications network and the Internet on it have very obvious network economic characteristics, that is, from the marginal amount, the cost of adding one more access unit is very small, and the improvement of technology can easily solve the bandwidth requirements. On the other hand, for telecommunications networks and the Internet, "distance is not a problem". The data and information transmitted by the network will basically not be lost due to the length of the distance. In theory, it only needs to increase the length of the network pipeline and add base stations and other equipment, and there is no need to increase technology and energy investment.

The energy network is different. The number of users and the distance will have different requirements for the network. A larger number of users and a longer transmission distance will lead to a sharp increase in transmission costs, requiring innovation and cost investment in technologies such as ultra-high voltage power grids. To achieve the full application of the energy Internet, it is necessary to make innovative breakthroughs and capital investment in the three major energy fields of energy production, energy transmission and energy storage. In the field of energy production, the core of power supply technology is to improve the development efficiency of clean energy, including wind power generation, solar power generation, ocean power generation and distributed power sources; in the field of energy transmission, it is necessary to realize ultra-high voltage transmission, submarine cables, superconducting transmission, DC power grids, microgrids and other technologies in the smart grid link; in the field of energy storage, in order to improve the popularity and cross-regional transmission of clean energy, it is necessary to increase the density of energy storage, extend its life and reduce costs. The technical requirements of these three major energy fields, coupled with the Internet's own technical focus in the field of information technology, such as cloud computing, big data, and the Internet of Things, have relatively raised the technical threshold for the energy field to join the Internet innovation.

Governance characteristics and principles of energy internet

Network organizational governance has become an important concept in social science research. The concept of network governance originates from the "holistic" network research paradigm. Network governance is the process by which participants establish network-level institutional arrangements to achieve common goals and ensure their rational operation. However, unlike other types of management activities, institutional arrangements in network governance need to meet the following requirements: First, institutional arrangements are collective and are jointly formulated and maintained by network members; second, institutional arrangements take maximizing network-level performance as the ultimate goal and evaluation criteria; third, the most important public good in power cooperation is the infrastructure required for power interconnection. How to reasonably allocate the cost of infrastructure construction among the cooperating parties will directly determine whether this public good can be effectively provided.

The cooperation strategy believes that there is a positive-sum game in the business environment. The interdependence in the environment makes value creation a joint process between two or more partners. The more successful one partner is, the greater the benefits of the other partners. Therefore, the transnational power cooperation network should follow three basic principles.

First, the transition from "dominant organization governance" to "external independent organization governance". In the case of network cooperation involving many subjects and complex and changeable cooperation content, the "participant equal governance" model is difficult to cope with the rising coordination costs. However, the basic spirit of the "Belt and Road" and the sovereignty requirements of the country do not allow a dominant country to impose unified control on the network. In this case, the "external independent organization governance" of the basic third party becomes the ideal model of network governance. It should be pointed out that many scholars believe that transnational network cooperation governance means transcending the traditional state-centered power form based on the classic definition of "governance". However, from the perspective of the practice of global information Internet governance, the state is still an important governance subject that cannot be absent. The state is the subject of the conclusion of international conventions and international law. International conventions determine the principles or "bottom line" of transnational cooperation. Only by acting within the scope of national recognition can transnational cooperation meet the basic requirements of "win-win". Therefore, attaching importance to the dominant position of the state and establishing formal institutional rules at the national level are prerequisites for transnational network governance.