Mobile Energy Internet

Similar to the evolution from wired Internet to mobile Internet (MI), the growing demand of power delivery anywhere and anytime appeals for power grid transformation from wired to mobile domain. We propose here the next generation of power delivery network – mobile energy internet (MEI) for wireless energy transfer within a mobile range from several meters to tens of meters. MEI will be a significant complement for Internet of things (IoT), because battery charging is one of the biggest headaches for IoT devices. Since MEI relies on wireless power transfer (WPT), we at first review various WPT technologies and particularly introduce a promising long-range high-power WPT method, namely resonant beam charging (RBC), which can transmit wireless power to multiple devices concurrently and safely. Then, we specify the MEI application, configuration, and topology. Furthermore, we present the MEI layered functional architecture and software-defined MEI model. Finally, we discuss the features of MEI and outline its opportunities and challenges. MEI can be viewed as the expansion from Internet of energy (IoE) to mobile domain, which has the potential to play the similar role of MI in information technology.