Promoting high-quality development of energy internet with ubiquitous perception

●At present and for a long time in the future, energy demand will continue to slow down, and people’s expectations for energy industry reform and demand for product diversification will be more urgent.

●The key to the construction and development of the energy Internet lies in "two-way interaction", which includes not only the interaction between "producers" and "consumers" in the energy industry, but also the information interaction and processing within each independent link of the source, grid, load and storage. Therefore, the underlying data perception is of paramount importance.

●The ubiquitous power Internet of Things is an important source of flexibility for the energy Internet and provides the most direct solution for achieving "two-way interaction" of the energy Internet.

Injecting flexibility into the energy system with a user-centric approach

The traditional energy industry generally recognizes its own development problems from the perspective of the "production side" and provides global optimization solutions. The main reason is that in the process of reform and opening up, the energy factor has lagged behind economic development many times, and the "energy shortage" and "power shortage" phenomena have occurred frequently. For example, the two economic accelerations and industrial expansions from 1985 to 1988 and starting in 1992 caused energy supply gaps; the re-industrialization process after 2000 led to many large-scale "power shortages", etc. The requirements of economic growth for energy factors are more focused on "quantity guarantees". At present and for a long period of time in the future, energy demand will continue to slow down, and energy supply will gradually show a loose trend. People's expectations for energy industry reform and product diversification are more urgent. User-centeredness will become the basic law of the evolution of the future energy system.

Against this backdrop, the concept of energy internet came into being. Energy internet is the integration of internet thinking and the traditional energy industry. It builds an interconnected network of various types of energy through horizontal multi-energy complementary and efficient utilization, and vertical source-grid-load-storage optimization and coordination. Based on internet thinking, energy internet shifts the focus of the energy industry from the "production side" to the "consumption side", and will better meet people's yearning for smart energy and a better life based on user needs, and achieve overall system optimization.

At the same time, the precise deployment of relevant policies has provided guidance for the development of energy internet. In July 2015, the "Guiding Opinions of the State Council on Actively Promoting the "Internet +" Action" (Guofa [2015] No. 40) was officially released, which clearly put forward the key tasks of "Internet +" smart energy. Subsequently, the "Guiding Opinions of the National Development and Reform Commission, the National Energy Administration, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Promoting the Development of "Internet +" Smart Energy" (Fagai Nengyuan [2016] No. 392) further focused on and refined the relevant tasks. Since the beginning of this year, the first batch of "Internet +" smart energy (energy internet) demonstration projects have entered the acceptance stage, and the construction of energy internet has entered the fast lane.

Ubiquitous Power Internet of Things is the Energy Internet

An important source of flexibility

The key to the construction and development of the energy Internet lies in "two-way interaction". "Two-way interaction" includes not only the interaction between "producers" and "consumers" in the energy industry, but also the information interaction and processing within each independent link of the source, grid, load and storage. Therefore, the underlying data perception is of paramount importance. At the beginning of this year, State Grid Corporation of China proposed the concept of ubiquitous power Internet of Things. Its goal is to apply modern information technologies and advanced communication technologies such as mobile Internet and artificial intelligence to promote the interconnection of all things and human-computer interaction in all links of the power system, and to achieve comprehensive state perception, efficient information processing, and convenient and flexible application. The author believes that the ubiquitous power Internet of Things is an important source of flexibility for the energy Internet and provides the most direct solution for realizing the "two-way interaction" of the energy Internet. From the perspective of the four independent links of source, grid, load and storage:

It is conducive to improving the efficiency of energy "source" production. Renewable energy is the future direction of global energy transformation, but due to its disadvantages in low energy density, resource location, and resource utilization conversion efficiency, it will not be overnight to replace fossil energy and become the main energy source. The data perception application of the ubiquitous power Internet of Things will make up for the disadvantage of clean energy energy density by improving the "information density" of the energy industry, thereby helping to accelerate the progress of the current energy transformation. For example, based on the full life cycle information data, Goldwind Technology accurately captures the flow field information such as wind speed and wind direction of the unit's environment and its dynamic changes, and further integrates such information into the wind turbine control, so that the unit can perceive complex wind conditions in advance and make the best response through intelligent control, so that the wind turbine can "move with the wind and follow the trend". While increasing power generation, it can also effectively reduce the unit load and improve the stability and adaptability of the unit operation.

It is conducive to improving the intelligence level of the power "grid". Considering that renewable energy will gradually become an important energy source in the future energy Internet architecture and the power transmission and distribution network is more scalable than other energy networks, the power grid will be the backbone of the energy Internet. Smart grid is one of the most important application scenarios of the Internet of Things. In the process of the transformation and development of modern power grids towards informatization, automation and interaction, the implementation of IoT-related technologies is crucial. For example, since 2012, State Grid Corporation of China has begun to explore the application of IoT technology to smart grids, and has carried out exploratory practices in 11 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) in its operating areas, and has carried out 287 smart grid pilot projects, covering seven fields including transmission equipment and line status monitoring systems, transmission line drone intelligent inspection systems, distributed generation and microgrid access control, electric vehicle charging and swapping facilities and operation management systems, smart communities/buildings, smart parks, and distribution network status monitoring. 65 sensor devices such as voltage and current, temperature and humidity, noise, tension, and wind deviation have been deployed, effectively improving the information collection, intelligent processing and two-way interaction capabilities of smart grid power generation, transmission, substation, distribution and power consumption.

It is conducive to responding to the diversified needs of "load". In the future, the demand side and the load side for the energy industry will no longer be limited to "energy products", and the prospects for diversified energy "services" will be broader. The construction of the ubiquitous power Internet of Things is conducive to accurately exploring the energy and electricity consumption characteristics of the "new kinetic energy" industry, and is conducive to obtaining the load information of household electrical equipment at various time periods, so as to effectively perceive and predict the individual's willingness and behavior to obtain value. For example, Opower, a US company, cooperates with power companies to obtain household energy usage data, establishes household energy consumption files based on behavioral science theories, house age information, surrounding weather, etc., and stimulates users' willingness to save energy through personal vertical comparison and neighborhood horizontal comparison. In addition, users can be notified to avoid high-energy-consuming activities such as washing and refrigeration during peak power hours, helping power sales companies to respond to demand and achieve load transfer.

It is conducive to mobilizing large-scale "storage" energy resources. Energy storage is a key equipment for the construction of energy Internet, with multiple functions such as matching supply and demand, smoothing fluctuations, shaving peaks and filling valleys, and improving quality. However, the current level of informatization in the energy storage industry is still not high. Recently, the "2019-2020 Action Plan for Implementing the Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Development of Energy Storage Technology and Industry" issued by the National Development and Reform Commission and other relevant ministries and commissions also clearly proposed "research and exploration of the integration of cutting-edge technologies such as information technology and artificial intelligence with renewable energy and energy storage fields". Large-scale energy storage resources can be effectively explored and integrated through ubiquitous sensing technology. As some studies have pointed out, there are currently a large number of scattered and idle battery energy storage resources on the user side, mainly including electric vehicles, communication base stations, and various uninterruptible power supply batteries. Based on the battery energy management and control cloud platform and the battery energy exchange system, the fragmented idle battery energy storage resources can be activated for large-scale distributed energy storage system power supply network dispatching and utilization, thereby realizing a distribution network energy storage system based on a "virtual power plant".