Clean and Smart Energy Technologies for Agricultural Energy Internet Systems: A Comprehensive Review and Future Perspectives

Abstract

The Agricultural Energy Internet (AEI) represents an emerging systemic paradigm driven by the convergence of intelligent agriculture and rural energy transformation. It is not a simple extension of agricultural informatization or rural electrification; rather, it redefines agricultural processes—such as irrigation, greenhouse environmental control, supplementary lighting, cold-chain logistics, and agricultural machinery—as perceptible, computable, and schedulable energy-related processes, thereby enabling the deep integration of agriculture, energy, environmental management, and intelligent decision-making. This review systematically examines the evolutionary trajectory of AEI, from early agricultural digitalization and Internet of Things (IoT)-based monitoring to edge intelligence and digital twin technologies, and ultimately to the coordinated optimization of agriculture–energy–environment systems. A comprehensive technical framework is established, encompassing physical energy coupling, multi-source sensing and actuation, interconnection and interoperability, edge–cloud collaborative control, data governance, digital twin modeling, artificial intelligence-enabled optimization, and application-oriented decision-making. The review further highlights that high-quality data governance, edge–cloud collaboration, and digital twin calibration are critical enablers of the transition from visualization-oriented management to closed-loop intelligent operation. In addition, this study clarifies the complementary relationship between agricultural informatization and electrification: the former provides capabilities for perception, prediction, optimization, and coordination, whereas the latter provides a controllable execution chain. Together, they constitute the foundation of a cyber-physical agricultural energy system. Finally, frontier research directions are identified, including high-temperature solid oxide electrolysis for hydrogen production, edge AI–IoT-enabled closed-loop agricultural operation, and privacy, security, and trust mechanisms in federated edge intelligence. The findings suggest that AEI can serve as a strategic technological framework for supporting the next generation of smart agriculture toward low-carbon, resilient, and collaborative operation.