The era of energy Internet is about to begin. Please seize these ten major industrial opportunities!

China Energy Storage Network News: We are in an era of great changes in the energy landscape. This era is an era of technological change, with continuous breakthroughs in energy technology and disruptive changes in the energy structure; this era is an era of institutional change, with the continuous opening of the power market, and the existing business model and profit model of the energy industry will soon face a huge impact; this era is the era of "Internet +", with the continuous integration of the Internet and energy, and the continuous emergence of non-traditional competitors, which is accelerating the process of industry disruption. ——Preface

Energy Internet is an open platform

The concept of "Energy Internet" first appeared in Jeremy Rifkin's book "The Third Industrial Revolution" published in 2012. He proposed four main characteristics of Energy Internet. ① Renewable energy is the main primary energy source; ② Ultra-large-scale access to distributed power generation and energy storage systems to form a new form of integrated production and sales; ③ Wide-area energy sharing based on Internet technology; ④ Support the electrification of the transportation system, that is, the transition from fuel vehicles to electric vehicles.

As Rifkin described, we believe that the energy internet is a new energy system that takes smart grid as the core, renewable energy as the basis, and the internet as the link, and realizes efficient and clean energy utilization through the high integration of energy and information. It is to form a new model of production and marketing integration by combining distributed power generation, energy storage systems, loads, etc.; it is to use advanced information technology, smart terminals and platforms to enable two-way flow of energy and information and peer-to-peer exchange; it is to widely integrate traditional power grids with intelligent technologies, give full play to advanced transmission technologies, and upgrade traditional power grids to intelligent platforms with powerful energy resource optimization and allocation functions.

Similar to the traditional Internet, the Energy Internet has three basic characteristics: intelligence, platformization, and sharing. Intelligence is reflected in the intelligent collection of energy big data by the Energy Internet and the opening of an information closed loop; platformization is reflected in breaking down industry barriers and accepting various market players; sharing is reflected in assisting in sharing industry resources and achieving industrial complementarity.

The development of energy internet requires continuous exploration

In order to explore the energy internet, many governments and enterprises at home and abroad have been making continuous attempts. The US FREEDM project, with the help of the development and maturity of electronic technology, has established an energy network architecture with intelligent functions to absorb a large amount of distributed energy, verifying the possibility of energy interconnection to form an independent operating system.

The German eTelligence project uses Internet technology to build an energy regulation and real-time power trading system, using load regulation to smooth out the intermittent and volatile nature of renewable energy output and improve the ability to absorb renewable energy. It verifies the feasibility of regulating energy allocation through a real-time power trading system.

In my country, the State Grid Corporation of China has proposed the concept of "Global Energy Internet". It is a globally interconnected strong smart grid with UHV power grid as the backbone network and mainly for the transmission of clean energy. However, more exploration is still to use the organic integration of distributed energy and microgrids. For example, GCL's distributed micro-energy network and ENN's pan-energy network are to create a regional multi-energy complementary energy Internet through the extension of the industrial chain. GCL is dominated by photovoltaics and cogeneration, and at the same time has deployed natural gas and smart energy; while ENN is dominated by gas, and at the same time is developing in the direction of deep processing of gas - power generation, cold and heat supply.

The development of energy internet is irreversible and inevitable

The continued advancement of the Energy Internet benefits from humanity’s increasing attention to sustainable development, continuous breakthroughs in energy technology, the gradual opening up of the electricity market, and the continuous evolution of global and regional integration.

Sustainable development goals: The signing of the Paris Agreement confirmed that major countries will reduce carbon emissions by 20-30% compared to 1990. China also proposed its own emission reduction target in the Paris Agreement, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 40-45% compared to 2005, and non-fossil energy accounts for about 15% of primary energy consumption. We expect China's renewable energy installed capacity to continue to grow at an average annual compound growth rate of 7.6%, reaching 2.3 billion kilowatts in 2035, and the proportion of renewable resources in installed capacity will reach 65% in 2035.

Breakthroughs in energy technology: PV conversion efficiency and wind turbine efficiency continue to break through. From the perspective of photovoltaics, the current domestic average cost of electricity has reached 0.7 yuan/kWh, and it is expected to continue to decline by 10-20% each year, and grid parity is just around the corner; from the perspective of wind power, the current domestic average cost of electricity has reached 0.5 yuan/kWh, and grid parity has been achieved in many regions, and 5MW wind turbines have been widely used. 20MW wind turbines will further provide the economy of large-scale centralized offshore wind power and become the mainstream. It is expected that most parts of my country will achieve grid parity in 2020. In addition, we expect that in the next five years, there will be technological breakthroughs in energy storage, and the cost will drop by about 40%, making microgrid technology more mature, enough to subvert the traditional power grid model and form a mature independent regional power grid.

Liberalization of the power market: By studying the history of global power system reform, we can find that most global power system reforms, including China's, follow the trend of gradual deregulation and move towards (partial) privatization. Power system reform has opened up the market competition pattern and promoted the separation of distribution and sales; it has driven the formation of innovative and entrepreneurial mechanisms and promoted the diversified development of business formats, allowing more and more cross-border competitors to enter the industry. They have brought new technologies and new thinking, and promoted the construction and development of the energy Internet.

Regional integration: Globalization and regional integration are irreversible trends. Energy and electricity have natural cross-regional interconnectivity. Regional interconnection of large power grids and international resource allocation have been strongly verified in Europe. China's "Belt and Road" initiative will help strengthen energy ties between China and countries along the route, and promote regional integration and development through energy infrastructure, commercial finance and investment cooperation. Regional integration has become another irreversible driving factor for the development of energy Internet.

Energy Internet will bring "three levels" of industrial opportunities

The development of the energy Internet will subvert the existing energy structure and energy system, and also give rise to the emergence of new business models and opportunities. With the in-depth involvement of the capital market, we believe that the future opportunities of the energy Internet will form an industrial opportunity at "three levels".

At the physical network level, the power network is the main framework, integrating gas, heat and other networks, covering the entire energy chain including energy production, transmission, consumption, storage and conversion. Business opportunities include distributed energy generation, microgrid construction, incremental distribution network, electricity sales, electric vehicles, etc.

At the data information level, the rapid development of information technologies such as the Internet of Things, big data, and mobile Internet provides information support for the entire industry chain of energy production, transmission, consumption, storage, and consumption. Business opportunities include big data analysis, information data exchange, data security, and intelligent trading systems (carbon trading, electricity trading).

At the operation platform level, we should make full use of Internet thinking, focus on users, and realize business value. We should provide value-added services and solutions throughout the energy chain. Business opportunities include operation and maintenance services, demand-side management, and integrated energy services.

Different business opportunities have different development stages and market attractiveness. We have selected the top ten industry opportunities that may exist in the future (Figure 2).

The industries with the best potential for rapid development in the near future include distributed gas, distributed photovoltaics, incremental distribution networks, electric vehicles and demand-side management.

The installed capacity of gas-distributed power will reach 250 billion watts in 2035 at an average annual growth rate of 17.5%. All kinds of enterprises, including the five major power groups, gas and oil companies, and professional technical service companies, can find opportunities to play a role in gas-distributed power business;