Energy Scavenging for Monitoring of Overhead Power Line Networks

The monitoring of overhead power line networks is becoming increasingly more challenging because of the power distribution of renewable energy resources. The use of ambient energy is important for a maintenance free supply of a wireless monitoring network. Generally, the electromagnetic field resulting from the AC current and the electrostatic field resulting from the AC voltage can be used. Nevertheless, the energy scavenging from electrostatic field shows decisive advantages because of availability, stability during operation and reliability. In this contribution we show the feasibility for the realisation of an energy scavenging unit. Theoretical investigations and simulations show that the distribution of the electric field in the immediate neighbourhood of the conductor shows a high gradient to the environment which can be used. The evaluation under realistic conditions in a high voltage laboratory show that through optimisation of the scavenging element an improvement of the amount of energy can be realised.