Goodbye to copper worldwide—DARPA manages to transmit electricity remotely without wires thanks to the “POWER” program

El Adelantado ^ | 4/9/25 | Raquel

[Eleutheria5]

What if we told you that DARPA, the U.S. government agency, has developed a way to send electricity through great distances… with no batteries or cables involved in the process? That’s right, like out of a cartoon (it actually looks like a Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz’s idea), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has been able to transmit energy using focused light beams. Of course, they have decided to call their project POWER —great copywriting, even better science.

But, how does the DARPA’s POWER project work? This scientific experiment turns electricity into a tightly focused beam of light, sends that beam across open air, and then turns the light back into electricity at the far end.

Much like Wi-Fi for power, it has a transmitter feeds a laser, the beam is steered and kept on target by tracking hardware, and a receiver (essentially a compact opening plus a mirror that redirects light onto rugged solar cells) converts photons into usable current. The appeal is mobility. If you can move energy as light, you can bypass roads, spools, ...

What DARPA actually did in New Mexico In a series of tests at the U.S. Army’s White Sands Missile Range, the POWER team delivered more than 800 watts across 8.6 kilometers for 30 seconds, then repeated shorter runs over several days that added up to more than a megajoule transferred.

The centerpiece was a new receiver that lets a near-infrared beam enter through a small aperture, strike a parabolic mirror, and reflect onto an array of commercial photovoltaic cells. At shorter ranges, the setup measured a little over 20% conversion from laser optical output back to usable output; the goal of this demo was speed and ruggedness, not peak efficiency.

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Can we forgo the copper cables now then?

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[Eleutheria5]

Now if only they use fossil fuels to generate the electricity transmitted wirelessly, we could still have global warming! Yay!

[nickcarraway]

Tesla, is that you?

[Red Badger]

Tesla’s dream..................

[Conan the Librarian]

Great idea, but, let’s hope Perry doesn’t push the self district button.

Dr. D in the new!

[marktwain]

I can see a few applications. However, it is extremely inefficient.

It appears to be about 4% or less efficient. If you have lots of power, and need a little power some distance away...

[Rural_Michigan]

Bitcoin is also able to do this

[Vermont Lt]

I thought Tesla was doing this stuff in the 1930’s.

[Red Badger]

8.6km is a little more than 5 miles.

Any longer than that the curvature of the Earth becomes a problem...........

[Tell It Right]

Agreed. My first thought as well. And it’d be interesting years later to study cancer rates of people living near the receiving end.

[PGR88]

Much like Wi-Fi for power, it has a transmitter feeds a laser, the beam is steered and kept on target by tracking hardware, and a receiver (essentially a compact opening plus a mirror that redirects light onto rugged solar cells) converts photons into usable current.

The power needed to generate lasers is huge.

So it will be 100 units of power in, to get 1 unit of power at the other end. Great for military use in a remote location, not so useful for 100 million US homes.

[SaveFerris]

No wires?

“The Ultimate Computer,” did that on March 8, 1968

Wait maybe that was the 23rd century...

[teeman8r]

Sell copper, NOW!

—N. Pelosi

[teeman8r]

Falling Skies, a Spielberg series, had the alien power generator on the moon supplying the power to the alien war machine.

[philman_36]

POWER: Persistent Optical Wire
As envisioned, POWER’s final demonstration will employ relays integrated onto existing platforms to validate long-distance transmission from a ground-sourced laser through multiple airborne nodes and back down to a ground receiver. I don't see it coming onto the civilian market any time soon.

[SaveFerris]

(Any longer than that the curvature of the Earth becomes a problem...........)

I hear ya bro...

We had the same problem with Rosie O’Donnell

We were trying to put satellites
🛰️🛰️🛰️🛰️🛰️🛰️ in orbit around her

[Skywise]

Geez - they finally figured out how to do it after Nikola Tesla did it more than a hundred years ago?!

[Skywise]

Yeah - but he never documented how he did it and the knowledge died with him.

[Skywise]

Can’t wait to get the M5 MacBook later this year just to say I have an M5!!

[Zathras]

Nothing new.
All the easy stuff has already been invented.
The real technical problems are going to be really tough to fix.
Many will be impossible.

[Vermont Lt]

Yeah…not very “scientific” to not keep notes. Ha Ha.