Ambient Energy Harvesting: The Potential of Additive Noise in Urban and Rural Medium-Voltage Electric Power Networks

Abstract

This paper deals with the medium-voltage (MV) power line communication (PLC) in the context of energy harvesting. To do so, a measurement campaign was carried out in urban and rural environments of Curitiba city, Brazil. This measurement campaign estimated the MV-PLC additive noise in these electric power networks. Numerical results show that the mean power, for distinct RF-to-DC conversion factors, in the urban environment is higher than in the rural one. Also, the achievable data rate analysis over the MV electric power networks shows the usefulness of this additive noise for feeding low-bit-rate devices.

Energy Harvesting in Electric Power Systems for Data Communication Purposes

“…Characteristics Literature E-Field Controllable and predictable [14]- [23] M-Field Controllable and predictable [24]- [31] WES Partially controllable/predictable [2], [32]- [37] In the following subsections, the E-field and M-field artificial sources of energy are detailed, highlighting the theoretical foundation behind the generation of this kind of energy in electric power systems. Also, the main approaches for using these artificial sources for powering EH devices are discussed, and the WES-based EH is introduced.…”

“…Also, MV electric power systems usually encompass the distributed generation and are cheaper to perform coupling than the HV ones [41], which can make WEH more interesting in the MV electric power systems than in HV ones. For instance, [32] investigated the WEH potential of MV power lines in the urban and rural environments and showed the usefulness of the energy contained in the PLC additive noise for feeding low-bit-rate devices.…”

“…In fact, the spectral content of the disturbances in electric signals in the frequency band related to NB-PLC systems has an interesting EH potential, especially due to the colored background noise that presents a high power below 500 kHz. Furthermore and similar to BB-PLC systems, WEH can be designed to encompass the frequencies from 500 kHz to 1.7 MHz, which is the frequency band gap between BB-PLC and NB-PLC technologies because it allows harvesting the energy from AM signals (narrowband noise) induced into power lines [32]. If a dedicated EH approach is used, then an EH device can also take advantage of the frequency selectivity of the NB-PLC channel to optimize power transmission.…”

The Usefulness of the Energy Harvested from Additive Noises in Power Line and Wireless Media

“…In this context, [4] related the power line communication (PLC) noise impulsiveness with the harvested energy amount while [5] studied the energy harvesting potential when the induced signal that is radiated from the power lines is taken into account. Also, [6] demonstrated the usefulness of the medium-voltage PLC additive noise in urban and rural environments as well as [7] exploited the diversity of both wired and wireless media for EH purpose and showed that they can be used in tandem for improving achievable data rates of low-bit-rate devices.…”