A decentralized "Energy Internet Europe„: to complement the European interconnected powerline systems

In Europe, the European interconnected systems between countries already provide physical and digital interfaces that enable European electricity trading and thus optimized overall use of generated electricity for all participating countries.

This Europe-wide, close-meshed electricity network of high-voltage and extra-high-voltage lines is used to distribute electrical energy on a large scale.

By linking various smaller regions, the decentralized "Energy Internet Europe", on the other hand, can stabilize small-scale, volatile electricity production from photovoltaic energy and wind power across national borders, thus minimizing the need to expand storage facilities.

The Energy Bands run along federal highways that do not stop at national borders in Europe but, on the contrary, continue seamlessly on the other side of the border - i.e., they can perfectly perform cross-border volatility balancing of decentralized generation and consumer structures on a smaller scale.

Europe has a well-developed network of highways and thus has the ideal basis for the installation and "energy networking" with Energy Bands everywhere

According to a study by the University of Dublin, an "EU supergrid" could save over 30% electricity through international volatility balancing

However, the study also concludes that the existing transmission systems are not suitable: Not only do transmission capacities and cross-border interconnection points need to be expanded; rather, intensive investments must also be made in smart grid technology, especially to make the vast amounts of decentrally generated electricity controllable and billable.

Comparing the Solar Atlas of Europe with its Wind Atlas, it is easy to see that all countries would benefit from a European Energy Internet

While there is significantly more solar radiation in the south, northern Europe has more wind power. In the case of a connection via an “Energy Internet," of course, the electricity generated in Spain would not be physically transported to Denmark: Rather, it can move around the grid like little independent waves, sometimes sloshing one way, sometimes the other, passing numerous different consumers, storage facilities, and even other small producers of renewable electricity along the way. The larger and finer(!) the grid is, the better volatility balancing is at the producer, consumer and storage levels.

Europe does have an interconnected grid, which is technically linked by interconnectors (border interconnection points) and economically linked at the power exchanges - but this is not sufficient for a Europe Smart Grid, neither in terms of size nor in terms of control.

This is a large infrastructure with high-voltage direct current transmission, the expansion of which is progressing much more slowly than planned: Cross-border infrastructure projects naturally take longer to plan and implement.

Installation and role-out are easier in the case of Energy Bands: just as they can be created and grown together everywhere in Germany as mini-lines, Energy Bands can also be installed throughout Europe - preferably with routes leading to wind turbines

Important here is the Europe-wide standardization of physical and digital interfaces, as the German Energy Agency has pointed out in a study and further developed through national and international cooperation

The Energy Bands can be small and localized, or they can be long enough to run across borders on highways and interstates - in this respect, they are larger than smart grid networks in a business park, for example, but smaller than the HVDC networks that run internationally.

The digital standards must not only be harmonized nationally and internationally, but must also continuously optimize the balancing of all generators, consumers and storage facilities along the Energy Bands in a self-learning manner as AI

Conclusion: Decentralized regional smart grid Energy Bands can thus grow together to form a Europe-wide „Energy Internet" if standards are defined from the outset for the physical and digital interfaces