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These are, quite literally, dark days for national energy security.

The South Australian grid is in disarray and blackouts threaten to engulf other states as soon as summer rolls around again or adverse weather conditions strike.

In an attempt to shore up energy security, the federal government has promised to fund a $2 billion pumped hydroelectric scheme in the Snowy Mountains, but the project will take years to complete. Meanwhile, the Weatherill government in South Australia is seeking tenders for both reserve gas generating capacity and large scale battery storage. It is even considering an offer by American billionaire and entrepreneur, Elon Musk, to provide 100 megawatt-hours of Tesla Powerpack battery storage. While Musk has offered to get this built within 100 days, the cost will not be cheap.

But one Australian company says the energy storage required to stabilize the grid already exists and it can bring it online at next to no cost.

The innovative Australian start up company, WETwatts, claims it can use the energy storage capacity already existing in wireless devices to supply power and stability to the grid as needed. They will conduct the first large scale tests of their technology in the Sydney CBD later this month and create a wireless virtual power station.

The first three letters of WETwatts’ name stands for Wireless Energy Transmission. Their virtual power station will be the first to make use of the storage capacity of wireless devices such as mobile phones, ipads, laptops, and the new Nintendo Switch. The founder of the company, Auric DeKalb, says it not only has the potential to disrupt both the battery storage and electricity generation industries, but the entire world.

How WET Works

A conventional virtual power station, such as the one AGL recently turned on in Adelaide, connects multiple battery systems distributed over a wide area through the internet and has them work together as one large battery. WET has the ability to do the same, but using the batteries in wireless devices.

There are over 50 million wireless capable devices in Australia and each has an average storage capacity of 14,500 milliwatt-hours. This comes to a total of 750 megawatt-hours of storage, which dwarfs Australia’s current on-grid battery storage capacity of under 40 megawatt-hours.

If Australia’s wireless battery storage capacity transmitted just 10% of its stored energy to the grid over an hour, it would provide twice as much power as Tesla’s comparatively puny 100 megawatt-hour battery bank.

WETwatts Plans To Become Ubiquitous

I recently had the pleasure of talking to Auric DeKalb, the founder of WETwatts at South Australia’s Monarto Zoo. At first he was far more interested in discussing animal conservation than his business, but after almost an hour he told me:

“The amazing thing about project WETwatts is only software is required. The necessary hardware is already in place. All wireless devices, and particularly mobile phones, are made to convert radio waves into electricity and vice-versa. This process can be up to 95% efficient. Our technology will enable the amount of battery storage available for use by the grid to be increased by more than an order of magnitude at next to no cost.” “WETwatts’ software will never drain a device below a preset amount chosen by its user, and we expect the typical device to only transmit power for around 20 hours a year when wholesale electricity prices are at their highest.” “WETwatts Phase I consists of testing in the Sydney CBD. In terms of raw wattage, it is one of the most active wireless locations on the planet. We have almost 10,000 devices fitted with our software and we expect to eventually be able to get a peak of around 100 kilowatts from them.” “In Phase II, we will make our mobile phone app available to anyone who is interested in making the world a greener place, completely free of charge.” “In Phase III, we expect our software to become ubiquitous across wireless platforms with people receiving reductions in their internet and mobile phone bills for the energy they supply.” “In Phase IV, everyone who is currently in the company gets a paid holiday, on me. They will have deserved it.”

He told me this as we were strolling past Monarto’s lion enclosure. When I asked him what phase V would be, he paused to admire one of the great blonde beasts and said:

“That would be letting the cat out of the bag.”

Auric DeKalb: Australian Entrepreneur

Like Elon Musk, DeKalb was born in South Africa. He emigrated to Australia 40 years ago, after spending several years in Argentina. Also similar to Musk, he has an obsession with space travel, but he doesn’t want to go nearly as far. When I asked him about his interest in space, he told me:

“I have no interest in running away to another planet. I think this fragile globe we stand on is the most beautiful thing there could be in this universe. It has given us life. But do we protect it? No. We burn coal, we pollute rivers, we raze forests, and we exterminate species. Currently, I am fighting to stop this. But it is my sincere wish that one day I will be able to look down on the earth from above and watch as the application of advanced technology removes humanity’s pollution from its surface.”

Australia: More Open To Innovation Than Japan

WETwatts is active in Japan and they originally planned to test WET technology there first. When I asked why Australia was chosen instead, DeKalb said:

“Because of the entrepreneurial approach the Australian government takes with regard to public services, there are certain ‘barriers’ that have to be overcome in other countries that are not present here.” “Initially, the Japanese government expressed interest in our technology. Japan has been having difficulties with their energy supply since the Fukushima nuclear disaster, or nuclear opportunity as I prefer to think of it. We were working our way towards large scale testing and were even at the point where we were renting cheap office space in a disused nuclear power plant, when we were tied up in red tape. The Japanese bureaucracy demanded we prove before we started testing that there was no possibility WET would interfere with their emergency broadcast system and made completely unreasonable safety demands.”

I asked DeKalb if there were any safety concerns that Australians should be aware of, and he replied:

“No! None at all! While the radiant power of 13 typical mobile phones is enough to cook the human pineal gland like a quail’s egg that is being cooked, we have investigated this situation intensively and concluded the odds against the frequencies and resonances all lining up in the right way are astronomical. The universe could die of old age before it happens even once, accidentally.”

WETwatts Is Ready To Disrupt Energy Incumbents

WETwatts has claimed it will disrupt both conventional battery storage and fossil fuel electricity generation. Because of the political opposition renewable energy has received from the Coalition Government in defense of fossil fuel incumbents, I asked DeKalb if he thought WETwatts would face similar opposition. He replied:

“Creative destruction is necessary for life itself. Politicians know this, but they fear it. I embrace it.” “When I was five years old on my parents’ farm in South Africa, I was woken by noises in the night. I looked out my window and saw a great lion in the moonlight. It had such power, such savagery, such will to destruction! It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. It was eating my father. Then my mother shot it dead. This was when I learned we must sometimes destroy to protect that which we love.” “When a species does not adapt to changing circumstances, it goes extinct. It is time for the fossil fuel dinosaurs and all that serve them to meet their end. At WETwatts we are creating the technology to make this possible. The number of wireless devices is increasing exponentially. People like to play with their laptops, their smartphones, iPads, fitbits, and what is that thing with the cartridges that make you want to vomit? …Nintendo Switches. And the more they play, the more we will be prepared to take power from them. For the good of the planet.”

Future Developments

WETwatts has claimed their software can allow a wireless device with a microphone to generate power from sound. When I asked DeKalb about this feature he said:

“A microphone is a piezoelectrical device which generates electrical current from the energy in soundwaves. The amount produced is only trivial, but there is no reason why the effect could not be increased and in the future mobile phones could be partially powered by the sound of people’s voices. They could even have their batteries charged by screaming into them.”

I asked DeKalb if he thought screaming into mobile phones to charge them would ever be more than just a gimmick and he removed his monocle and said:

“I believe in the future there will be much screaming.”