The Internet of Energy is Microgrids All the Way Down

The Victorian Voltage Vanishes

The current electrical grid is the most impressive system that humanity has ever invented. That said, it's also a relic. It's a massive, spinning, synchronous machine. The engineering concepts it was built upon are over a century old, and frankly, not up to the task for our modern energy needs. It was designed as a tops-down "push" model. Power flows from big plants, to substations, to houses. This system is fragile and inefficient. If a single line fails, an entire region can go dark. We're still using 19th-century logic to power 21st-century lives. We treat electricity like a scarce commodity. We meter every single watt. We worry about peak hours. We check our bills with a sense of dread.

If we were to reinvent an electrical grid today, it would look nothing like the fragile system that we currently have. But we've invested so much in the grid as it is now, it would be impossible to replace it, right? Well, we've seen this before, and when done correctly, a complete overhaul is possible. In the early days of the internet, we used a modem and the telephone network to connect to the internet (or a BBS - cue modem beeping and buzzing sounds). The phone system proved to be completely inadequate for our growing data needs. This opened the door for upgrading the entire system, fiber optics proliferated, and the new packet-based network soon carried all of your data and even your phone calls. The old phone companies didn't disappear; they were repurposed.

EnergyNet: Packet-Switching Power

What would the new energy grid look like, and what's needed to make it happen?

The core idea for the new and improved grid is simple. We should treat electrons like data, a network of kilowatts instead of kilobytes. In the old (current) grid, energy is a continuous stream. In an EnergyNet, we use power electronics to create energy "packets." This is just the first of three fundamental blocks. 

The second feature is we use a protocol to send these energy packets exactly where they're needed. We do not just dump energy into the wires. We buffer it and store it in local batteries. This requires a shift from "dumb" wires to "smart" nodes. Your house becomes a node. Your neighbor’s house is another node. This is the EnergyNet. 

The third aspect of this new grid vision is that it's made up of interconnected microgrids. It is a system of systems, just like the internet is a system of interconnected networks. It is decentralized and resilient. If any node or microgrid collapses, it doesn't take down the network. 

The internet is not just one big network where all packets go to a central router and are forwarded from there. This would, one, be a huge bottleneck, and two, be a fragile system with a central single point of failure. Instead, internet communications happen point-to-point via the shortest route. Additionally, there are caches to speed up access and shorten the path for popular content. So, when you access smart devices in your home with their app on your phone, or print something on your home printer, the packets may never leave your house. Similarly, much of the content you access online may be coming from a cache that your ISP hosts, so the conversation never leaves your county.

Let's apply this same idea to energy. The energy you need should be sourced as locally and as cheaply as possible. The first request is to the solar panels on your roof (assuming you have them). The second request is to the batteries in your garage or driveway (again, assuming you have them). The third and fourth sources are your neighbors' solar panels and batteries, if they have energy to spare. This request continues until an available source is found, just like an internet data request would. Don't worry, just as with the internet, you don't have to know all the ins and outs; there's a protocol that takes care of it for you, so (from your perspective) the power you need just automagically arrives. 

The Protocol Paradox: Rules for Radiant Resources

Let's look a little deeper. How do these nodes talk to each other? They use the Energy Protocol. This is the Internet Protocol (IP) of electricity. It is an open-source set of rules. It allows different devices to communicate. Your solar inverter, your EV, your home battery, and your neighbor's systems all speak the same language, regardless of who made them. This protocol is critical for a networked microgrid. It removes the need for a central dictator. There is no "Master Control Room"; instead, the nodes negotiate.

The Energy Protocol works on a peer-to-peer basis. It prioritizes local energy. If your solar panels are making extra juice, the protocol looks for a nearby energy demand. It might be the EV in your driveway. It might be the heat pump next door. The protocol handles the handshake. It manages the price and the timing. It ensures that the local microgrid balances itself before asking peers or the macro-grid for help. This reduces the load on long-distance transmission lines. It makes the whole network more efficient.

Microgrids All the Way Down

The secret to making all of this work is galvanic separation. Traditional grids are physically connected across thousands of miles. A surge in one place can travel everywhere. Galvanic separation breaks this dependency. Electronic converters make a separation that is only pierced when both sides agree. These devices act like firewalls for energy routers. They allow power to pass through without a direct metal-to-metal connection. This prevents cascading failures. If a tree hits a line in the next town, your microgrid stays stable. It is physically isolated but digitally connected. It is a self-healing system. It is the ultimate insurance policy for our modern lifestyle.

Feature	Traditional Grid	Networked Microgrid (EnergyNet)
Topology	Centralized and linear	Decentralized and meshed
Flow Logic	One-way "Push"	Multi-directional "Exchange"
Fail-Safe	Large-scale blackouts	Localized isolation
Protocol	Proprietary and closed	Open Energy Protocol
Role of Storage	Minimal and expensive	Ubiquitous and distributed
Primary Asset	Massive power plants	Networked buffers and EVs

The Flat-Fee Frontier: Subscribing to Sunlight

The economics of this system are wild. Birgersson argues that we should stop paying for kilowatt-hours. He compares energy to the internet. We used to pay for long-distance calls by the minute. Now, we pay a flat monthly fee for unlimited data. We can do the same for power. Once the infrastructure is built, the marginal cost of a photon is zero. The sun does not send a bill. The wind does not have a payroll.

Imagine paying a flat $40 or $50 USD a month for all the energy you need. This covers the maintenance of the network. It pays for the "routers" and the wires. It does not matter if you charge your car or bake ten cakes. The price stays the same. This only works in a networked microgrid. Because the system is so efficient, there is an abundance of energy. We move from a world of scarcity to a world of plenty. In the US, this would be a massive boost to the economy. It frees up thousands of dollars for the average household every year. It turns energy from a stressful variable cost into a predictable utility.

The Electric Vehicle: The Battery on the Border

Your EV is the hero of this story. It is not just a car. It is a massive, mobile buffer. Most EVs have enough storage to power a home for several days. In a networked microgrid, the EV acts as a local reservoir. It soaks up energy when the sun is high. It feeds it back to the microgrid when the sun goes down. The Open Energy Protocol manages this balance.

We often hear that EVs will break the grid. That is old-school thinking. It assumes a "dumb" grid that cannot talk back. In an EnergyNet, the EV is the solution. It provides the flexibility that renewables need. Millions of cars plugged into a networked system create a massive virtual power plant. We do not need to build more coal or gas plants. We just need to use the batteries we already own. It is an elegant solution. It is also a very profitable one for the car owner. Your car could literally pay for its own subscription by being a good network citizen.

The Energy Cache: Akamai for Electrons 

Batteries are the Content Delivery Networks of the EnergyNet. In the digital world, Netflix doesn't stream every movie from one server in California. It uses internet caches like Akamai, so the content source is much closer to you. This reduces latency and congestion. Batteries do the same for our sockets. They're local caches for electrons. EnergyNet doesn't pull power from a plant five hundred miles away. It requests it from next door, down the street, and the battery at the local substation. This reduces strain on transmission lines by 40%. It makes the grid snappy, reliable, and modern. We're building a global buffer. Your V2H car is a fast energy cache. And on EnergyNet, it's efficient, elegant, and revolutionary. It's the end of the central server model.

A Networked Nirvana

The transition to a networked microgrid is inevitable. The technology is already here. Power electronics are getting cheaper every day. Solar panels are becoming standard on new roofs. EVs are filling up our garages. We just need to change the software. We need to adopt the Open Energy Protocol. We need to stop thinking like Victorian engineers. We need to start thinking like network architects.

This is not a utopian dream. It is a logical progression. It is the same path that data and telecommunications followed. We are simply applying proven internet principles to our power lines. The result is a system that is more reliable, more affordable, and much cleaner. It empowers the individual prosumer. It stabilizes the local community. It creates a robust infrastructure that can handle any challenge. We are building a world where energy is as ubiquitous as the air we breathe. We are creating a resilient and clean infrastructure. We are finally moving toward a future free from fossil fuels.