China’s rural energy system

which serves about 500 million people

is critical infrastructure for rural revitalization;however

it confronts pressing challenges

including low power supply reliability

hurdles in new energy integration

suboptimal power quality

and pronounced seasonal load fluctuations. To address these issues

this paper proposes a rural distributed smart energy system which is grounded in clean energy

supported by digital and intelligent technologies

and centered on electricity as the core hub. The proposed system fosters a low-carbon intelligent energy ecosystem through multi-energy complementarity

demand-side interaction

and flexible interconnection. The system adopts a “distributed-dominated

centralized-coordinated” supply logic and a hierarchical zonal distributed collaborative control architecture. The system integrates wind

solar

hydro

and biomass resources for autonomous networking

and achieves self-sufficiency and dynamic balance through intelligent sensing and artificial intelligence technologies. This paper presents key technologies from four dimensions: system morphology planning

flexible self-networking

hierarchical zonal control

and energy supply quality optimization. This paper also emphasizes the need to advance institutional innovations such as cross-wall electricity sales

shared energy storage

and electricity pricing mechanisms

providing supports for the green transformation of rural energy and the achievement of dual-carbon goals.