By: Matthew Wittemeier
Australia’s energy sector stands at a pivotal moment. With rooftop solar penetration exceeding 30% in some regions and battery storage scaling rapidly, the traditional one-way power grid is straining under two-way flows and variable renewables. Enter “internetification of energy” – a transformative concept drawing direct parallels from how the internet decentralised communication. Just as packet-switched networks replaced rigid phone circuits, this approach reimagines electricity as routable, software-defined flows across distributed nodes. It’s not a distant dream; pilot projects worldwide show it’s feasible today, promising resilience against blackouts, lower costs and seamless decarbonisation.
A Brief History: From Central Stations to Smart Networks
The modern electricity grid emerged in the late 19th century with Thomas Edison’s centralised DC systems and Nikola Tesla’s AC innovations, scaled by visionaries like Samuel Insull. By the mid-20th century, it was a marvel: massive coal, hydro and nuclear plants feeding power through high-voltage transmission to passive consumers via distribution wires. This “Plain Old Grid System” (POGS) excelled at scale but assumed predictable supply and one-directional demand.
Cracks appeared with liberalisation in the 1990s, deregulation and early renewables. The 2000s brought “smart grids”—digital overlays with sensors, meters and automation for better monitoring. Then came the “Energy Internet” vision around 2010, coined by researchers like Zhou et al., blending smart grids with internet protocols for peer-to-peer energy trading. Recent advances, like the 2025 EnergyNet blueprint, push further: galvanically isolated DC microgrids linked by open protocols, mirroring the internet’s shift from circuit-switched telephony to packet-switched data.
Key milestones include Europe’s ENTSO-E grid code updates for inverter stability, California’s microgrid pilots post-2020 wildfires, and Australia’s AEMO trials of distributed energy resources (DER) orchestration. By 2026, concepts like Energy Routers—hardware enforcing software-controlled flows—are moving from arXiv papers to municipal demos.
Core Concepts: Packetising Power Like Data
At its heart, internetification treats electricity like internet packets: small, routable units from diverse sources, dynamically directed to needs via software, not fixed wires.
Modular Microgrids: Local DC networks (Energy Local Area Networks or ELANs) aggregate solar panels, batteries, EVs and loads. Galvanic isolation via Energy Routers prevents fault propagation, unlike AC grids where one tripped line cascades.
Open Protocols (e.g., Energy Protocol or EP): Assets gain IP-like addresses, enabling programmatic control. A battery “talks” to an EV charger or neighbour’s excess solar via standardised APIs, with consent-based transactions.
Software-Defined Control Plane: Energy Router Operating Systems (EROS) and Network Management Systems (ENMS) handle routing, buffering and optimisation. Think SDN (software-defined networking) for power: real-time decisions on flows, prices and constraints.
Hybrid Overlay: These connect to legacy AC grids (EWANs) through bidirectional interfaces, allowing seamless scaling from homes to cities without a full rip-and-replace.
This decouples energy from geography. Excess rooftop solar in Nimbin routes to Lismore EVs during peaks, buffered by local storage, all without stressing transmission lines.
Why It’s the Future: Resilience, Efficiency, Electrification
Internetification isn’t hype—it’s engineering necessity for three interlocking crises: blackouts, cost spirals and net-zero mandates.
Blackout Prevention: Australia’s 2016 South Australia blackout and Texas 2021 freeze exposed centralised vulnerabilities. Distributed nodes with local autonomy self-heal: if a line fails, microgrids island seamlessly, resuming supply in seconds. EnergyNet trials show 99.99% uptime versus legacy grids’ cascading risks.
Cost Revolution: Network costs comprise 45-50% of NEM residential bills. By unlocking DER utilisation—3 million+ rooftop systems, 50GW potential by 2030—internetification defers $10-20 billion in augmentation. Fixed, predictable tariffs emerge from optimised local matching, slashing volatility.
Electrification Enabler: Data centres, EVs (projected 20% fleet by 2035) and industry need massive demand growth. Traditional grids choke on evening peaks; packetised flows dynamically route, freeing capacity. GE’s digital substations already demonstrate this via edge computing and DER aggregation.
Decarbonisation Accelerator: Renewables hit 80%+ in high-DER scenarios without curtailment. Big data analytics predict flows, while blockchain-like ledgers settle peer trades, turning prosumers into grid assets.
Critics cite cybersecurity, but protocols embed end-to-end encryption and zero-trust models – lessons from internet hardening post-SolarWinds.
Australia’s Head Start and Path Forward
Rainbow Power Company knows this terrain: Nimbin’s off-grid ethos mirrors microgrid pioneers. Australia leads with 35% global rooftop solar share, AEMO’s ISP mandating DER coordination, and Western Australia’s EV tariffs. Yet, as CEO Matthew notes, “we’ve started down the path, but have so much more to do to prevent future outages amid climate extremes.”
Steps ahead:
- Policy: Mandate open standards in NER, fund ENMS pilots via CEFC.
- Trials: Scale Energex/AEMO VPPs to EnergyNet-style routers.
- Industry: RPC-like installers integrate EP-compatible inverters.
Final Thoughts: The Grid Reborn
Internetification evolves the grid from 19th-century pipes to 21st-century networks: resilient, efficient, boundless. Like the internet democratising information, it unlocks cheap, clean energy for all – ending blackouts, affordability woes and fossil dependence. For RPC and Australia’s regions, it’s not if, but when we fully commit. The blueprint exists; the pilots hum. Time to route the future.
