What does the Global Energy Internet look like?

China Energy Storage Network: According to the latest report jointly released by the International Energy Agency and other institutions, China's contribution to the reduction of global energy consumption exceeds 35%. At present, the global energy is dominated by clean energy, electricity is the center, and the modern energy system of interconnection, co-construction and sharing represents the trend and direction of world energy development.

Shen Hong, director of the Global Energy Interconnection Development and Cooperation Organization, said: "Building global energy interconnection is conducive to the efficient development, allocation and utilization of clean energy."

What is the Global Energy Internet? Shen Hong proposed: "The Global Energy Internet is smart grid + ultra-high voltage grid + clean energy." The development of clean energy is the core goal; the development of ultra-high voltage technology provides the possibility of building a platform for the global clean energy Internet. Only through the ultra-high voltage grid can large-scale and long-distance clean energy transmission be achieved; smart grid can effectively solve the problem of clean energy consumption.

According to the Global Energy Interconnection Development Cooperation Organization, the proportion of clean energy will increase from 22.8% in 2016 to 71.6% in 2050, and the global installed power generation capacity will increase from 6.17 billion kilowatts in 2016 to 266.7 billion kilowatts, of which the proportion of clean energy installed power generation capacity and power generation in the world's total installed capacity and total power generation will exceed 80%, and electricity will become the dominant terminal energy. On this basis, the organization also proposed a forecast for the future global power generation capacity, which is expected to reach 26.7 billion kilowatts by 2050 and 31.9 billion kilowatts by 2070. The proportion of global clean energy installed capacity will exceed fossil energy before 2030, reach 83% in 2050, and further increase to 92% in 2070.

At the meeting, reporters learned that the global energy internet has three characteristics. First, it is high, with a very high proportion of clean energy, which is expected to reach more than 90% by 2070; second, it is large, covering all continents in the world; and third, it is far, referring to the long transmission distance.

In the future, the global energy Internet will form nine vertical and nine horizontal energy channels, widely interconnecting clean energy bases and load centers, realizing global allocation of clean energy, and large-scale mutual assistance across time zones and seasons.

Including large-scale solar power generation bases, wind power bases, and hydropower bases around the world. Among them, the global large-scale solar power generation infrastructure is mainly distributed in North Africa, West Asia, Central Asia, western China, western United States, Mexico, Chile, and Australia; wind power is mainly in Greenland and Sakhalin Island in the Arctic, as well as western China, the North Sea in Europe, and central United States; there are also plans for hydropower bases, mainly distributed in the Jinsha River, Yarlung Zangbo River and other river basins in China, the Mekong River and Irrawaddy River in Southeast Asia, the Amazon River and the basin in South America, Sweden, Finland, etc.

Key technology innovation needs

The global energy internet mainly promotes clean energy, which has characteristics such as volatility and intermittency, which requires innovation in key technologies. At the meeting, Shen Hong summarized the key technologies that need to be innovated in the recent promotion of the global energy internet as follows:

The first is grid-friendly technology for large-scale renewable energy bases. The goal is to make clean energy have external characteristics similar to conventional energy, and to make it controllable, measurable, and feasible, so that it can maintain the original stability of the grid when a high proportion of it is involved in the grid.

The second is the large-scale network, source, load and storage complementary technology. According to the data, my country has already started research, and Qinghai achieved 100% clean energy power supply for a week. Globally, it has put forward higher requirements for larger-scale networks, sources, loads and storage.

The third is large-scale energy storage technology. As an alternative and regulatory resource, energy storage provides the necessary conditions for clean energy access to the global energy internet.

The fourth is photovoltaic and solar thermal combined power generation technology. In the future, the global energy internet will have a large proportion of wind power and photovoltaic access, and we need to increase the power of the grid. At present, there are problems. One is that the scale of solar thermal is small. Due to temperature problems, it is impossible to achieve ultra-high critical technology. Another problem is that the cost of solar thermal is relatively high.

The fifth is UHV flexible DC grid technology. The grid conditions in clean energy-rich areas are relatively weak, and conventional DC transmission cannot meet the requirements of grid distribution. UHV flexible DC will become a technology needed for the future global energy Internet.

The sixth is the ultra-high voltage submarine DC cable technology. Many of the planned global energy internets are cross-sea, such as the Mediterranean, China, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Southeast Asia, Australia, and the Caribbean region, which all require cross-sea power transmission. From the current situation, submarine cables can reach 600 volts and a transmission capacity of 2 million, which is still far from the demand for the scale of the global energy internet. In the future, we need to further develop ultra-large capacity cables with a latency of plus or minus 800 to plus or minus 1,000 volts.

The seventh is superconducting direct current transmission technology. In some areas, superconducting direct current transmission technology can play a better role, but the current status of superconducting direct current research is not ideal and cannot reach the stage of engineering use.

The eighth is large-scale power grid control technology. At present, the State Grid Corporation of China has carried out a lot of research on the coordination and control of large-scale power grids and has achieved fruitful results. However, it is still unknown whether it has the control capability for larger-scale power grids. Therefore, in the future, large-scale renewable clean energy collection, long-distance transmission, and power grid configuration will all require large-scale power grid control technology.

The ninth is the AC/DC hybrid power grid stability control technology. Stability control technology is an important part of the global energy internet work.

The tenth is broadband oscillation suppression technology.

Eleventh is electric energy replacement technology, including electric heating, geothermal pumps, industrial electric boilers, electric vehicles, etc., which aims to increase the proportion of electric energy in terminal consumption, which is also urgently needed in the future.

Twelve is power electronics technology. This is a strategic technology that plays an important supporting role in the high-proportion power electronics of the power grid. The future development trend is to develop in the direction of more compactness and higher density.

Thirteenth is artificial intelligence cognitive technology. The access of a high proportion of clean energy will inevitably lead to very complex changes in the operating characteristics of the power grid. Artificial intelligence cognitive technology can improve the ability to control large-scale global energy Internet.