Could this revolutionary technology soon replace electricity towers?
Will roadside electricity pylons soon disappear? A system currently being tested on a large scale in New Zealand and Germany could overcome these somewhat cluttered infrastructures. In those countries, companies are looking to replace all the large high-voltage pylons with two small antennas that transmit the same amount of electricity, but using radio waves.
Between these two small antennas, there is a transmitter and a receiver, separated by a distance of five, ten, 20 kilometers or more.
Transmitting electricity for tens of kilometers
In concrete terms, this technology would make it possible to transmit electricity wirelessly over distances of tens of kilometers by relying on a highly concentrated beam of radio waves between two antennas. For this to work, they must be in the same line of sight. Although it is a technology that has been mastered for a long time (among the military, in particular), so far we have never been able to exploit it profitably.
And that seems to be what he managed to do. Emroda New Zealand startup. Furthermore, their employees are now working with the European Space Agency (ESA) because installing their technology on satellites would make it possible to build solar power plants in space, thus having solar panels that give their full performance 24 hours a day and then easily send the energy back to Earth.
Environmental and economic benefits, but a risk to our health?
This system has many advantages. First and foremost, it is more environmentally friendly: if it becomes more widespread, there will be no need to destroy forests to recover electricity from power plants. It is also more economical when it is necessary to deliver energy to isolated places, such as high mountains, open countryside or from wind turbines installed offshore, for example.
But does this technology pose a risk to our health? Obviously, if we stay for just a few seconds, nothing will happen. It will still heat up after a few minutes, but only by one or two degrees. For this reason, in principle, this system would be less dangerous than current high-voltage lines. Although caution must still be exercised to verify this wave-based technology, it remains promising if it works.