Gao Feng: Energy Internet is the support point for realizing the energy revolution strategy

Shu Yinbiao, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Chairman and Party Secretary of State Grid Corporation of China, believes in the proposal "Accelerating the Re-Electrification Process to Promote the Revolution in Energy Production and Consumption" at this year's two sessions that to solve the energy development problem, it is necessary to deepen the energy production and consumption revolution, promote green and low-carbon development and the construction of a beautiful China, especially to focus on the role of the power grid as an energy conversion hub and basic platform, accelerate the improvement of a strong smart grid with UHV as the backbone grid, build a wide-area ubiquitous, open and shared energy Internet, improve the ability to optimize the allocation of energy resources, and provide strong support for large-scale grid connection and consumption of clean energy and electricity to replace other terminal energy. Prior to this, in January, State Grid Corporation of China proposed for the first time to start a new journey to build a world-class energy Internet enterprise with outstanding competitiveness. This remarkable move stems from the promotion of President Xi Jinping's energy revolution strategy. In order to gain a deeper understanding of the role of energy Internet in promoting energy revolution and its development, this magazine interviewed Gao Feng, Deputy Secretary-General of the National Energy Internet Industry and Technology Innovation Alliance and Vice President of Tsinghua University Energy Internet Innovation Institute.

Sustainable development is the inherent motivation for building an energy internet

Reporter: President Xi Jinping has stressed on different occasions that my country must implement an energy revolution strategy and advocated the construction of a global energy internet. State Grid Corporation of China, National Energy Administration and other relevant departments and research institutions are actively taking action to promote this. What is the inherent connection between the energy revolution and the construction of a global energy internet?

Gao Feng: The direct reason why President Xi Jinping proposed the energy revolution is that my country is facing dual pressures from energy and environment and cannot achieve sustainable development. The severe smog from the end of 2013 to the beginning of 2014 awakened the Chinese people. Since then, the Chinese people have paid more and more attention to environmental issues. The emergence of environmental problems is closely related to the large-scale and uncontrolled use of fossil energy. Moreover, because fossil energy is a non-renewable energy source, it will eventually run out, so it is necessary to change the way of energy production and consumption, which is what President Xi said must be an energy revolution. From a deeper perspective, the energy revolution stems from the contradiction between energy productivity and energy production relations. At present, not only my country, but also the sustainable development of energy and environment in the entire human society is facing huge challenges. The terminal energy consumption structure of the world's major developed countries is dominated by fossil energy, and the proportion of traditional energy power generation is high, so it is urgent to solve the problem of energy sustainable development. my country faces the dual pressures of energy environment and economic development: on the one hand, my country currently has a large number of advanced technologies for the development of renewable energy - the rapid development of photovoltaic, electric energy storage, electric vehicles and other technologies has made the organizational form of traditional energy no longer suitable for the current level of scientific and technological development; on the other hand, my country's per capita energy resources are less than half of the world average, while the energy consumption per unit of GDP is twice the world average, and the energy supply situation is grim. Overall, to ensure sustainable development, it is necessary to make fundamental changes in the way energy is produced and consumed, and promote the revolution in energy production and consumption. This is the powerful internal motivation for building a global energy Internet.

Reporter: Why can the energy Internet promote and realize the energy revolution?

Gao Feng: With the improvement of cognitive level and the development of science and technology, the way humans develop and use energy has been continuously improved and innovated, which in turn has promoted the progress and change of human civilization and society. At present, the third industrial revolution is emerging worldwide. Internet technology, as a good way to bring production and consumption closer, has become one of the pillars of the third industrial revolution. Energy Internet is not only the development direction of the energy industry in the future, but also the realization form of energy revolution. Energy Internet is an important support for important strategic deployments such as building a clean, low-carbon, safe and efficient modern energy system and promoting the revolution in energy production and consumption. It helps to improve the energy structure and improve energy utilization efficiency. It is a feasible path to achieve clean, efficient and market-oriented energy in my country.

Reporter: What stage is my country's energy internet construction at? What will the future energy internet look like?

Gao Feng: The National Energy Administration and the State Grid Corporation of China have taken positive and effective actions to promote the construction of my country's energy internet. Objectively speaking, my country is currently in the early stages of building an energy internet, but there are relatively clear construction goals and approaches. The future energy system will no longer be limited to energy suppliers and consumers, but will be an ecological energy system with public participation and multi-party interaction. The energy system is no longer a one-way system where suppliers provide energy to consumers, but a smart energy system that realizes multi-party interaction at all levels such as energy flow, information flow, business flow, and value flow. This smart energy system can not only provide a variety of energy services, but also provide comprehensive energy services, and can provide services for energy producers, energy suppliers, energy service providers, and energy regulators.

The goal of energy internet: improving overall energy efficiency

Reporter: Nur Bekri, Director of the National Energy Administration, said at the 2017 Energy Transformation High-level Forum that "energy efficiency should be given top priority at all times and under all circumstances." How should this statement be understood?

Gao Feng: Undoubtedly, this sentence emphasizes the importance of energy efficiency, but it contains an implicit concept - all kinds of energy production methods will have an impact on the environment. Even clean energy such as wind power and photovoltaics, their manufacturing, construction, and operation processes will have different degrees of impact on the environment. It is just that from the perspective of emissions, they have advantages over traditional energy methods. The only way to obtain more effective energy that creates positive value for the environment is to improve system efficiency.

Reporter: How does the energy Internet improve system energy efficiency?

Gao Feng: The goal of the energy internet at this stage is the goal of the energy revolution - to improve overall energy efficiency. Energy efficiency includes three aspects. The first is the efficiency of the overall energy system. From the perspective of the overall system, the energy internet comprehensively considers various energy forms, the entire chain of energy production, transmission, distribution and consumption; comprehensively considers the entire business process of energy planning, design, construction and operation, and combines the optimization and improvement of various technical means to significantly reduce the energy loss of the overall energy system and improve the utilization efficiency of equipment, assets and funds.

Second, energy efficiency should be sustainable, which means that environmental benefits are an important part of overall energy efficiency. Whether it is to control haze or reduce carbon emissions, it is necessary to encourage more use of renewable and clean energy. Energy Internet is flexible and has strong scalability. It can support plug-and-play of distributed energy and diversified business models. In other words, Energy Internet can actually support and encourage the use of more renewable and clean energy.

Third, energy efficiency also includes the efficiency of people involved in the energy system. The operation, management and service of the energy system should be people-oriented. Energy producers, consumers, operators and regulators will all benefit from the energy Internet. The energy Internet can benefit all parties.

Reporter: Please give an example.

Gao Feng: Let me give you two examples. First, from the perspective of power producers and operators. Electricity includes both traditional coal-fired power, wind power, and photovoltaic power. The operator is the power grid. The cost of coal-fired power is low, but the environmental cost is high; the cost of wind and photovoltaic power has dropped significantly to almost the same as coal-fired power, with low environmental costs and support from national policies, so its competitiveness is improving, but it is unstable. It may not be available when needed, but it may be available when not needed. In this way, coal-fired power, wind and photovoltaic power, and power grids will have interest disputes for their own considerations. For example, the power grid is unwilling to connect unstable wind and photovoltaic power to the grid, while wind and photovoltaic power hope to recover their investment as soon as possible and hope to connect as many as possible to the grid; the power grid is more willing to accept stable coal-fired power due to problems such as grid operation costs and safety, etc., which ultimately leads to uneven efficiency among all participants. The energy Internet relies on a highly secure and reliable main energy grid and information network, which can cover the entire energy chain and integrate energy production, consumption, storage, and trading. This network feature can resolve interest disputes among all parties and achieve the efficiency that participants deserve.