What if we talked about the flow of electricity the way we talked about the flow of packets on the internet?

One of the most exciting ideas I've heard about recently is the EnergyNet, a proposal for a decentralised energy grid that functions like the internet with concentric decentralised "networks of networks" forming a large cohesive entity. I first heard of this idea on a Podcast episode and I really want to learn more.

Our current foundation of the electricity grid relies on a centralised utility provider that uses analogue switches to control whether or not a building has electricity. Circuit breakers then allow us to direct the flow of electricity inside of individual apartments and buildings. The grid was built for a world where a small set of energy producers (fossil fuel plants and coal plants, etc.) provide electricity to a large number of consumers.

Now in a world where rooftop solar is now being installed in staggering amounts, consumers are both producers and consumers of electricity. The grid is not prepared for symmetric distribution. Jonas Birgersson, one of the creators of EnergyNet, asserts that this is a similar problem to telecommunications. One of the characteristics of the internet is its symmetric design. Users of the internet are both consuming and uploading content. The internet's decentralised architecture makes it resilient to power outages and self-healing when certain critical infrastructure is offline. In that sense, the internet is a perfect model to start thinking about a world where electricity consumption and production is all part of a decentralised, self-healing network. We could potentially break the monopoly of power supply and distribution with competition through open standards.

There's a lot more to learn here, but this is the world I want to live in! I want to digitise the grid and make it possible for power producers and consumers to talk to each other in a reasonable way. I want to learn more about this project and am even interested in visiting the pilot project they've created in Lund, Sweden to understand more about the underlying hardware and software required to make this possible.

EnergyNet Resources

• EnergyNet Explained: Internetification of Energy Distribution, the paper introducing the EnergyNet.
• Making the Electricity Grid Work Like the Internet is the volts.wtf podcast that has kept me thinking about this problem day-and-night.
• EnergyNet Task Force, the new task force created to steward development of the EnergyNet.
• Announcement Article of the EnergyNet pilot in Lund, Sweden.
• Warp Institute, the incubator that funded the initial development of the EnergyNet

Open Questions:

• What hardware and software was used to build the Lund EnergyNet pilot? Can we replicate that elsewhere?
• What are the legal/regulatory hurdles to setting up an EnergyNet grid? Where might one set it up?
• The announcement article mentions an "Energy Router Operating System" used in the Lund pilot. Is the source for that operating system available anywhere?

Do you have more resources about the EnergyNet that you'd like to share? Let me know. Are you based in NYC and want to grab a beer and talk more about the EnergyNet? I'd love to learn more as well.