Call for papers for a Special Issue of Frontiers in Energy

Security, affordability and sustainability are three key themes for energy exploration, transportation and consumption in the modern society. In the past century, main energy carriers, such as electricity systems and natural gas systems, are mainly planned, operated and controlled in an isolated manner. Various energy consumptions at end customers are also independent of each other. 

Since Jeremy Rifkin introduced the transformative concept of Energy Internet, it has fundamentally changed the view of the society towards energy exploration, transportation and utilisation from many aspects. The development of “Energy Internet” holds significant implications for the whole energy supply chain worldwide. It has already led to fundamental revolutions in the energy sector from many aspects, including localised energy supply, integration of various energy sectors and interconnection of bulk power systems, which underlie the transition to a low-carbon society. However, during this transition, there are many accompanying technical, regulatory, political and societal challenges to be resolved. 

Topic areas
This Call for Papers for a special issue of Frontiers in Energy provides an opportunity for researchers, policy makers, entrepreneurs and general public to work together for more comprehensive understandings of challenges and opportunities in energy exploration, transportation, and consumption under new energy ecosystems with the integration and fusion of energy technologies, things of networks, and internet finance.

Authors are invited to submit original papers on the topics of strategies, policies, methodologies, technologies and behaviour aspects of energy exploration, transportation, and consumption. The Editorial Team encourages submissions with novel research and extensive review papers to discuss the development of energy internet for facilitating low-carbon energy development.

This Special Issue is designed to promote the understanding of the optimal pathway for developing a low carbon energy sector with increased security and sustainability at the lowest costs, where associated policy/commercial instruments and technology improvements can be deployed to facilitate the progress. The Editorial Team welcomes original research papers, review papers, and case study work that target at, but are not restricted to, the following topics:

■ Review on new energy ecosystems under the integration and fusion of energy technology, things of networks, and internet finance
■ Feasibility of energy internet, relevant technical political challenges, barriers, and opportunities 
■ Emerging technologies of low carbon energy exploration, transportation, conversion, storage, distribution, and utilisation
■ Intelligence of energy transportation and alternative energy vectors that complement traditional energy transportation vectors
■ Multi-lateral energy trading via energy internet 
■ Innovative architecture of energy market at both whole and retail levels 

Important Dates
■ Submission of around 500 words, extended abstracts to Dr. Chenghong Gu (cg277@bath.ac.uk)or Dr. Xiaojing Lv (lvxiaojing@sjtu.edu.cn) by the end June 2017.
■ Responses from the Special Issue Editorial Team will be sent to prospective authors by the end of July 2017.
■ Authors should submit the ‘peer-review ready’ manuscripts via the ScholarOne system (https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/fie) by the end of December 2017.
■ Peer review/paper revision process between January and March 2018.
■ Submission of final version of all revised manuscripts by the end of April 2018.
■ Publication of this Special Issue by May 2018.

Submission Guidance
Full papers are invited for potential publication on this Special Issue. Submissions should be between 9000 and 13000 words for comprehensive reviews, between 7000 and 8500 words for full research papers, and between 4000 and 5000 words for case studies. Papers must be written in a good level of English. All submissions should be developed based upon the editorial and formatting guidelines provided in the instructions for authors for Frontiers in Energy, which can be accessed from:
■ http://www.springer.com/engineering/energy+technology/journal/11708, or
■ http://journal.hep.com.cn/fie/EN/column/column257.shtml

Upon receipt of completed manuscripts, three to six independent reviewers will be selected to provide comments for each submission. Upon receipt and acceptance of the author’s revised or re-revised manuscripts, all papers will be published in this Special Issue titled: "Energy Internet".

Guest Editor Team:
■ Prof. Shilie WENG, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.
■ Dr. Chenghong GU, Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Bath, UK, email: cg277@bath.ac.uk.
■ Dr. Xiaojing LV, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China, email: lvxiaojing@sjtu.edu.cn.

Editors-in-Chief of Frontiers in Energy:
■ Shilie WENG, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China;
■ Weidou NI, Tsinghua University, China;
■ Suping PENG, China University of Mining and Technology (Beijing), China.