Energy Internet

This chapter presents the development of the Energy Internet throughout the history as an evolutionary solution based on modern technological development and needs, with the respect of its architecture, key features, and key concepts, such as energy router, prosumer, and virtual power plant. The architecture of modern IT support for the electric power sector is considered, including its basic characteristics, the integration of contemporary information and communication technologies, such as cloud and fog computing, as well as the security and quality of service issues that arise with the application of these technologies. This chapter provides an overview of recent research related to the concept of Energy Internet and identifies gaps and directions for further research.

Finance and Innovation Solutions to Implement Investment Programs in Electric-Power Complex of the Russian Federation

Today we observe changes in concepts of organizing power - engineering industry and tariff pricing. While estimating the pressure of sanctions, everybody agrees that the worst damage is caused by finance tools. Therefore, innovation in electric-power sector is started with finance innovation. It is also necessary to bear in mind the future earnings of stakeholders and households that plan to re-orient their investment from oil sector to electric-power engineering. This trend is being discussed right now, though for Russia with its gas reserves and customer preferences the process of investment changes can be rather long. The finance platform in this industry is not fundamental yet. It is possible to start innovation only after accumulating some funds. For instance, it is planned to change elements in the structure of power and fuel potential, to reform technical and technological elements of infrastructure (chat-bots with geographic and product applications, drones, quadrocopters, which can be used for linear and high buildings). In the future it is planned to develop new customer clusters with certain social index. In the article the authors study finance and innovation solutions to implement innovation programs in electricpower complex in conditions of digitalization and imperative indices of investment, though digitalization is called the key anti-ecological factor in this sector.

Industrial Policy in the Electric Power Sector as Part of China’s Global Leadership Strategy

Chinas growing economic power led to the rise of its geopolitical ambitions in the 21st century, and Chinas industrial policy has long been an important tool for implementing its global leadership strategy. Yet, how effective is the visible hand of the state? This paper examines the positive and negative effects of industrial policy implementation in Chinas electricity sector based on the analysis of policy documents, statistics, and academic publications. This study finds that together with energy policy measures industrial policy has been quite successful in promoting RD activities and production of high-tech power equipment. It gave China an opportunity to increase the share of clean energy sources in the power generation mix. Besides, Chinese power companies gradually became global leaders in the electricity sector. At the same time, the implementation of industrial policies has led to the over-expenditure of resources and is characterized by problems of horizontal and vertical coordination between the three main players in the policy-making and implementation system: the central government, local authorities, and large state-owned companies. The development of the electric power sector and related industries is managed by a large group of ministries and departments of the central government. Moreover, the heads of several energy companies have the power and influence equivalent to that of a minister, and there were divergences of priorities of central and local authorities at the regional level.

Investment Appeal of Modern Electric Power Generating Companies

Nowadays, the conditions for the further reforming of Russian electric power industry and developing its generating companies are changing. However, the problems of attracting investments into this sphere and increasing the investment appeal of the involved companies remain unsolved. The purpose of the research is to assess the investment appeal of the modern wholesale and territorial companies generating electric power, mainly for portfolio investors. The assessment was primarily conducted using the method of financial ratios, taking into consideration the approach used by A. Zaporozhan, A. Petrova and M. Kalvarskaya for assessing investment appeal of generating companies at the initial stage of the reforming of Russian electric power sector. Specific amendments to this approach are suggested. These amendments concern the increase of the number of the assessed objective financial indicators and specification of their content. Componentwise ranking of companies according to their investment appeal was conducted. It allowed the author to identify leaders and outsiders. One can observe comparability of the obtained results with the assessment of the investment appeal of generating companies as far as the quality of their corporate management is concerned, conducted by the center for corporate development ТopCompetence, Association of Independent Directors and National Research University «Higher School of Economics».

Digital twins and their use in future power systems

The electric power sector is one of the later sectors in adopting digital twins and models in the loop for its operations. This article firstly reviews the history, the fundamental properties, and the variants of such digital twins and how they relate to the power system. Secondly, first applications of the digital twin concept in the power and energy business are explained. It is shown that the trans-disciplinarity, the different time scales, and the heterogeneity of the required models are the main challenges in this process and that co-simulation and co-modeling can help. This article will help power system professionals to enter the field of digital twins and to learn how they can be used in their business.

Impact of distributed power generation on protection coordination in distribution network

<p>In the whole world and especially in Morocco, the electric power sector faces significant challenges and the demand for energy is increasing as fossil fuel sources are disappearing. Moreover, the high cost of construction of large production plants and the obligation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are among the factors pushing the energy sector to integrate distributed generators DGs based on renewable energies into power grids. However, the integration of these generators increased the values of short-circuit currents in the network, which poses a real threat to the existing protection coordination systems in the distribution network. The aim of this article is to bring together in a single platform all available research addressing the issue of protection coordination in the presence of DGs in the distribution network, in order to help researchers identify future scope. This paper presents a review of the impact of distributed generators on the protection coordination of distribution networks. The solutions proposed in the literature, to mitigate the negative impact of DGs, have been investigated in detail, along with the limitations of these proposed techniques.</p>

On the climate benefit of a coal-to-gas shift in Germany’s electric power sector

Methane emissions along the natural gas supply chain are critical for the climate benefit achievable by fuel switching from coal to natural gas in the electric power sector. For Germany, one of the world’s largest primary energy consumers, with a coal and natural gas share in the power sector of 35% and 13%, respectively, we conducted fleet-conversion modelling for reference year 2018, taking domestic and export country specific greenhouse gas (GHG)-emissions in the natural gas and coal supply chains into account. Methane leakage rates below 4.9% (GWP20; immediate 4.1%) in the natural gas supply chain lead to overall reduction of CO2-equivalent GHG-emissions by fuel switching. Supply chain methane emissions vary significantly for the import countries Russia, Norway and The Netherlands, yet for Germany’s combined natural gas mix lie with << 1% far below specific break-even leakage rates. Supply chain emission scenarios demonstrate that a complete shift to natural gas would emit 30–55% (GWP20 and GWP100, respectively) less CO2-equivalent GHG than from the coal mix. However, further abating methane emissions in the petroleum sector should remain a prime effort, when considering natural gas as bridge fuel on the path to achieve the Paris climate goals.