Energy harvesting for overhead power line monitoring

Power transmission is becoming increasingly challenging because of the growth of electricity demands and distribution of renewable energies. Therefore, an effective monitoring of power lines is of decisive importance for network management. In this paper, we propose a solution for energy harvesting from the electrostatic stray field of the power line to power the wireless sensor nodes. Theoretical considerations for the power module and the design of the energy management unit are presented. A realized prototype of the power module was tested under laboratory conditions. A field test shows that energy harvester can collect enough energy to power the sensor device by 16 mW.