Energy router: Architectures and functionalities toward Energy Internet

The next-generation electric power system, known as the smart grid, will incorporate a large number of renewable energy resources that fundamentally change the energy management paradigm. In order to manage efficiently the energy supply and demand in the power grid, energy routers are required which adjust dynamically the energy distribution in the grid, which is so called the Energy Internet. We discuss in this paper the functional expectations on the energy router design and present our preliminary research results on the energy router architectural construction and communication performance. This paper documents our work-in-progress on the design and implementation of energy router, a critical equipment to enable intelligent energy management in the smart grid.