Electric Field Energy Harvesting Powered Wireless Sensors for Smart Grid

Abstract

In this paper, a new energy harvesting technology using stray electric field of an electric power line is presented. It is found that energy can be harvested and stored in the storage capacitor that is connected to a cylindrical aluminum foil wrapped around a commercial insulated 220 V power line. The average current flowing into 47 <TEX>${\mu}F$</TEX> storage capacitor is about 4.53 <TEX>${\mu}A$</TEX> with 60 cm long cylindrical aluminum foil, and it is possible to operate wireless sensor node to transmit RF data every 42 seconds. The harvested average power is about 47 <TEX>${\mu}W$</TEX> in this case. Since the energy can be harvested without removing insulating sheath, it is believed that the proposed harvesting technology can be applied to power the sensor nodes in wireless ubiquitous sensor network and smart grid system.