Wireless Power Transmission

Looking forward to a future where laser beams replace power lines, DAPRA's Persistent Optical Wireless Energy Relay (POWER) program has set new records for transmitting more power wirelessly over longer distances.

The billionaire co-founder of finance app Robinhood has a new startup focused on beaming solar power from satellites to receivers on Earth. With $50 million in funding, this Starlink-for-electricity outfit aims to launch a test in orbit next year.

In a move to make military logistics simpler by eliminating the need to move fuel and batteries around battlefields, the US Army has awarded Raytheon a contract to develop a directed energy wireless power system that can beam energy to where it's needed.

DARPA has tapped Raytheon to design and develop a wireless, airborne relay system to "deliver energy into contested environments," as part of its Energy Web Dominance program, in which DARPA wants to be able to power anything from nearly anywhere.

A Caltech team is celebrating the world's first space-based wireless power transmission, and the first time detectable levels of power have been beamed down to Earth. The Space Solar Power Project aims to unlock huge orbital clean energy resources.

New Zealand company Emrod says it's got the technology to enable efficient wireless energy transfer from orbit. It's proposing a global wireless energy matrix, which would instantly beam renewable energy via satellite between any two points on Earth.

Korean engineers have demonstrated a new system that uses infrared lasers to beam power over distances as far as 100 ft (30 m), which could eventually lead to technology that automatically charges your phone as soon as you walk into a room.

In what it describes as the most significant demonstration of its kind in half a century, the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) beamed 1.6 kW of power over a kilometer (3,280 ft) using a microwave beam at the US Army Research Field in Maryland.

Wireless power transmission has potential, but range is a major hurdle. In a new proof-of-concept, Ericsson and PowerLight Technologies demonstrated a technique called optical beaming, using a laser to transmit power to a portable 5G base station.

We've already seen wirelessly powered implants that are activated by an external transmitter. Taking things a step further, scientists are now able to activate multiple implants sequentially, still using just one transmitting device.

Usually when we talk about "cutting the cord," it means cancelling cable TV. But Russian startup Reasonance has bigger plans for TV cord cutting, showing a prototype that leaves the electrical cord behind in favor of wireless power.

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.