Design of low-power non-contact electric field energy harvesting capacitive plates from 275kv transmission line

• Main Author: Suganthi Yeesparan
• Format: text::Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2023

Many innovative products and findings have been invented thanks to the advent of modern technologies nowadays. Energy harvesting is one of them which is still undergoing consistent development. Energy harvesting involves scavenging the energy from external sources such as solar, wind, vibration, radio frequency and electric field, and use it to support low-powered devices such as condition monitoring sensors. With a massive number of external sources, energy harvesting will be a prominent and alternative solution in providing power without batteries as it is cost-effective and environmentally friendly. Electric field energy harvesting is one of the practical energy harvesting methods in power transmission line applications. This energy harvesting method is considered as one of the most reliable and preferred techniques for energizing power line transmission system condition monitoring sensors such as tilt, vibration and stay sensors as the surrounding is full of electric field even in an open circuit state. This method is indeed attractive in rural areas where most of the power transmission lines exist. Even though the electric field energy harvesting method has been proven as an effective way to harvest energy, previous studies have shown that the existing electric field energy harvesters (EFEH) are either clamped around the line or attached to the power transmission, thus complicating the installation process. In this study, a new method of harvesting electric field under a 275kV transmission line is applied by using the innovative design of non-contact EFEH. Seven significant design parameters are examined and improved step-by-step in order to produce an efficient, cost-effective and simpler EFEH design. ANSYS Maxwell software is used to simulate, analyse and compare the electric fields captured by all design models. In order to support the electric field simulations of all harvester designs, EFEH prototypes are built and tested under the surrounding of 275kV transmission lines. The maximum output power of 15.65μW is recorded from the most efficient EFEH design by using a simple half wave rectifier with 10μF capacitor in the filter. It is believed that the suggested EFEH is practical for energizing those low- powered sensors that are used to monitor the conditions of transmission lines and tower particularly in those areas that are not easily accessible.