A Magnetically Controlled Current Transformer for Stable Energy Harvesting

Abstract

The magnetically controlled current transformer (MCCT) is proposed to harvest stable energy from the magnetic field induced by the transmission-line fluctuating current. Compared with the conventional current transformer (CT), the advance of the proposed MCCT originates from the so-called constant magnetic flux control, which is achieved by connecting an electronic load on the secondary side of MCCT, and adjust the load impedance to make it equivalent to the corresponding resistive-capacitive impedance for magnetization or demagnetization. Furthermore, the working principle and the excitation characteristic of the MCCT system have been analyzed using the equivalent magnetic circuit and equivalent circuit methods. In addition, the details of the electronic load circuit and control system of the MCCT are presented in this paper, and the stability of the system is verified using logarithmic criterion and total harmonic current distortion (THDi) analysis. Finally, the co-simulation and experimental results show that MCCT can produce a stable output power of 13 W in the range of 50–500 A current fluctuations, demonstrating that the proposed magnetic energy harvester is capable of a high conversion efficiency and output stability.