Simulation of Electric Field Energy Harvesting Based on Electret Electrostatic Enhancement

Abstract

There is a large amount of unused electric field energy around power lines. Due to the inherent low energy density around the power line, the traditional capacitive energy harvester adopts a large-volume strategy to increase the output power, which limits the application scenarios. This paper proposes a new type of electric field energy harvester based on electret electrostatic enhancement effect to harvest electric field energy. The electric field energy density is increased by adding an electret film to the double-layer disc structure. In the case of reducing the size of the harvester, the external electric field and the electric field generated by the electret form a coupling, which increases the vibration amplitude and thereby increases the output power. Using the Comsol finite element simulation tool, the simulation results show that the maximum output voltage can reach 530V at a resonance frequency of 300Hz. The acquisition power of harvester is up to 2.34mW in the electric field. The harvester can work for low-power wireless sensor nodes near the power line.