Towards an Internet of Energy for smart and distributed generation: applications, strategies, and challenges

The global demands for clean and sustainable energy are rapidly increasing because of population and economic growth. The future of energy essentially requires novel thinking and new systems to transform energy generation, distribution, and consumption. The Internet of Energy (IoE), as a new concept, transforms the way of energy production, supply, and consumption to fulfill high-energy demands via a smart network of industrial energy producers and consumers. The main objective of this paper is to address how the Internet of Things (IoT) would meet the requirements of smart and distributed power generation. We did a comprehensive literature review to provide insights into the IoE applications and enlighten the current challenges. Furthermore, the paper provides deep insights into the existing research challenges to address the current limitations of the IoE security issues, and potential directions are also pointed for future work. The findings of this study include identifying the requirements and enabler factors influencing the IoT-based distributed generation that would be useful for policymakers and decision-makers in the field.

Automated summary

This paper discusses how the Internet of Things can meet the requirements of smart and distributed power generation, and presents current challenges and potential improvements.