From Smart Grid to Energy Physical Internet: Why the Future Will Be Packet-Based

Abstract

Fabrizio Benelli, Mario Caronna, Claudio Salvadori and Franco Maciariello*

The rapidly accelerating energy transition increasingly exposes the structural limitations of today's electric grids, even when enhanced through conventional smart-grid capabilities. While smart grids introduced advanced monitoring, automation, and limited bidirectional flows, they were not conceived to operate as distributed, interoperable, packet- based networks that can orchestrate highly granular energy exchanges across heterogeneous nodes. In this evolving scenario, digital infrastructures, Internet-inspired architectures, and distributed decision-making mechanisms become fundamental in order to manage flexibility, criticality, congestion, and resilience across ever more decentralized energy ecosystems. This article proposes reading the evolution of power systems through a transport-and-traffic-oriented lens, in line with the positioning of CRTTE, a journal strongly concerned with flows, routing, network capacity, congestion, and infrastructure planning. By conceptualizing electricity as a flow of packets rather than a bulk continuous commodity, a novel design approach emerges in which Distributed System Operators transition from asset-based managers into orchestrators of multi-actor energy traffic. The progression from smart grids toward what we refer to as the Energy Physical Internet reveals that electricity infrastructures, similarly to vehicular and data traffic, increasingly need routing capabilities, interoperable layers, explainable decision rules, and congestion-aware network intelligence, especially at the intersection of DER integration, electrification of mobility, and high-voltage grid interconnection. The analogy with road and data networks is neither simplistic nor merely metaphorical. It reflects the underlying architectural rethinking required as digital sensing, edge intelligence, artificial intelligence, and interoperable platform design converge into a new operational paradigm. Energy traffic becomes manageable similarly to packet flows on IP-based networks, enabling new forms of routing, prioritization, load balancing, and cyber-physical resilience across distributed infrastructures. This conceptual transition holds significant consequences for infrastructure planning, regulation, digital governance, and emerging business models in an increasingly electrified, digitalized, and renewable-based future.

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