Energy Internet: Redefinition and categories

Abstract

The concept of ‘Energy Internet’ (EI) has been widely accepted by both academic and industry experts after more than a decade of development. Since it was proposed, EI has been discussed and applied to many technical works in power and energy areas. Some specific definitions were proposed for EI by those who have applied it to respective fields of engineering, but a comprehensive and widely accepted definition of EI is still being debated. In this paper, we propose the redefinition of EI, based on a comprehensive literature review, some latest trends and driving forces in the global energy industry, as well as its development in the past decade. In addition, we summarise the EI framework and features for future applications, where EI is categorised by its scale into local‐ and wide‐area applications to manifest its effectiveness in power and energy.