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

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Nikola Tesla in the lab with a few million volts of electricity overhead.
[image credit: Wikipedia]

Sounds interesting, but of course experiments don’t always go according to plan – as Tesla well knew.
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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, reports New Atlas.

The dream of wireless power transmission is far from new; everyone’s favorite electrical genius Nikola Tesla once proved he could power light bulbs from more than two miles away with a 140-foot Tesla coil in the 1890s – never mind that in doing so he burned out the dynamo at the local powerplant and plunged the entire town of Colorado Springs into blackout.

Tesla’s dream was to place enormous towers all over the world that could transmit power wirelessly to any point on the globe, powering homes, businesses, industries and even giant electric ships on the ocean.

Investor J.P. Morgan famously killed the idea with a single question: “where can I put the meter?”

It has taken 120 years, but New Zealand company Emrod appears to have finally convinced a major power distributor to have a crack at going wireless in a commercial capacity.

Powerco, the second-biggest distributor in New Zealand, is investing in Emrod, whose technology appears to be able to shift large amounts of electricity much more efficiently, between any two points that can be joined with line-of-sight relays.

“We’re interested to see whether Emrod’s technology can complement the established ways we deliver power,” said Powerco’s Network Transformation Manager Nicolas Vessiot.

“We envisage using this to deliver electricity in remote places, or across areas with challenging terrain. There’s also potential to use it to keep the lights on for our customers when we’re doing maintenance on our existing infrastructure.”

Full report here.

New Zealand’s wireless power transmission: Your questions answered – August 04, 2020
An interview with Emrod’s founder, Greg Kushnir

via Tallbloke’s Talkshop

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August 4, 2020 at 04:09AM