Elimpus has successfully deployed a working prototype device capable of harvesting energy from the conductors on a 400kV tower. Funded by the NIA project Power 2 Tower and supported by Scottish Power Energy Networks, the device was installed in February this year and has been harvesting sufficient energy to transmit meteorological data to a cloud based server every 10-12 minutes. The NIA funded Power 2 Tower project has successfully demonstrated that sufficient energy can be harvested from the electric field around the conductors to power basic sensors and transmit data to a central server. [EH overview]
Further development is under consideration with potential applications including line sag/inclination measurement, thermal rating and partial discharge monitoring of remote cable sealing ends.
