[Hitstirrer]

Is it April 1st?

Or is this for real?

Power your EV from a high tower source - as long as your car is in line of sight?

Or keep a battery topped-up without plugging in.

As long as you don't mind having a large plate receiver on the roof that is.

NZ to trial world-first commercial long-range, wireless power transmission

A New Zealand-based startup has developed a method of safely and wirelessly transmitting electric power across long distances without the use of copper wire, and is working on implementing it with the country's second-largest power distributor.

newatlas.com

 

[JeffG]

As well as the fact that electric power is already transmitted across long distances without the use of copper wire (they are aluminium), I am taking the rest of this article with a pinch of salt. Cue @donald.

 

[AlGrsn]

JP Morgan yanked Tesla's funding in 1904 when it looked like his Wardenclyffe experiment at Shoreham, NY was going to be successful.
The problem with wireless broadcast power is charging for the power. In the early 1900s it was not possible. Today the broadcaster may be set up to communicate digitally and securely with the receivers for metering the power.
The power broadcasting stations such as Wardenclyffe have to be supplied with power from coal-burning, oil-burning, gas-burning, nuclear, hydro, solar, wind, power plants which require investment, maintenance, fueling, so the power can't be free.

 

[donald]

As well as the fact that electric power is already transmitted across long distances without the use of copper wire (they are aluminium), I am taking the rest of this article with a pinch of salt. Cue @donald.

Thanks for nudging me, I like seeing this sort of thing.

This is the real deal. As soon as they mention microwaves, yes, you can transmit vast amounts of power by microwaves.

You can use just good parabolic geometry to collimate microwave beams but there are even devices called 'masers' which are lasers but not light but microwaves.

There were some ideas many years ago I recall reading as a lad to put super large solar panels into geostationary orbit and maser power back to Earth, directly to wherever it is needed. I thought that was a great idea.

It is non-trivial because the atmosphere will happily suck up the energy for you if you are not careful. If you push too much energy through a given area (power flux) then you may even cause the air to break down and ionise, particularly if it is humid or dusty.

Good luck to them. In NZ with rough terrain, it might make some real sense to do that, from one high vantage point to another, clearly even if it wasn't that efficient the total cost for operating for X years to a small community might be considerably better than trying to erect or bury mains cable.

Sounds a good idea, for that country. I wish them well.

 

[Hitstirrer]

A follow-up interview by the systems' founder to explain a bit more about this proposal.

New Zealand's wireless power transmission: Your questions answered

Yesterday we covered the news that New Zealand's second-largest electricity distributor has signed a deal with startup Emrod to trial long-range wireless power transmission. Today we follow up with an interview with Emrod's founder, Greg Kushnir, to talk about the deal, the technology, safety and…

newatlas.com

 

[donald]

Like he says (like I said) been around for decades. If they perfect it, all strength to them.

It looks like they are using some sort of phased array arrangement. Personally I'd look again at maser technology, but let 'em play!

 

[Hitstirrer]

The indication is that this is scalable. And that a 1m2 array can send 10Kw to a receiver 10 metres away. A slightly smaller unit could, therefore, probably send 7Kw from an upper apartment to the owner's car in its designated parking spot 10 metres away. If both units were detachable that would solve the home charging issue for such people. But I can think of a dozen reasons why this won't be allowed.

 

[davesul]

According to Table 1 (page 17) in this document produced by the Federal Communications Commission, Office of Engineering and Technology :

" Questions and Answers about Biological Effects and Potential Hazards of Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Fields"

https://transition.fcc.gov/bureaus/oet/info/documents/bulletins/oet56/oet56e4.pdf

The limit for 'Maximum Permissible Exposure' to the General Population, for RF emissions between 1.5 GHz and 100 GHz is 1 milliwatt per square cm averaged over 30 minutes.

The FCC limit corresponds to 10 watts per square meter, so if a power flux of 10 kW through 1 square meter is intercepted by a human for 30 minutes, that would be exceeding the FCC limit by a factor of 1000 times .

No thank you!

 

[mikegs]

The FCC limit corresponds to 10 watts per square meter, so if a power flux of 10 kW through 1 square meter is intercepted by a human for 30 minutes, that would be exceeding the FCC limit by a factor of 1000 times .

No thank you!

Which is why they have systems to prevent that happening - it's in the articles linked.
Also, considering the potential use of these systems it's highly unlikely the beams will be in reach of anyone not airborne, and in that case you'd struggle to be in the beam for more than a few seconds. And the safety system would cut the power anyway.

 

[davesul]

Which is why they have systems to prevent that happening - it's in the articles linked.
Also, considering the potential use of these systems it's highly unlikely the beams will be in reach of anyone not airborne, and in that case you'd struggle to be in the beam for more than a few seconds. And the safety system would cut the power anyway.

Err yes but... My comment was in the context of the previous post #7 mentioning charging a car at a distance of 10 metres from an upper apartment...