Energy Harvesting from Overhead Transmission Line Magnetic fields

Abstract

This paper proposes a superior energy harvester system which uses magnetic fields as its source. The design parameters have been analyzed to determine their impact on the amount of power that can be harvested. An efficient and novel power processing unit which produces a regulated DC voltage and distributes the power between the load and the backup energy storage element has been proposed. Experimental results have demonstrated that the proposed harvester utilizing the nanocrystalline material can achieve a power density of 100.2 mW/cm3, which is much higher than that reported in many other researches. The proposed harvester can produce as much as 55 W of power from a power line carrying 615 A of AC current.