A communication and control system for a high voltage power line using an energy harvesting power supply to avoid batteries in the communication components maintained at line voltage. The energy harvesting power supply utilizes scavenged backscatter power received from a transceiver maintained at ground potential or a power supply with a super-saturating magnetic flux core, such as a mu-metal core, to harvest electromagnetic field energy from the power line. The communication equipment maintained at line voltage communicates information to the transceiver maintained at ground potential by modulating backscatter energy reflected from the beam transmitted by the ground level transceiver to minimize the power requirement of the communication equipment maintained at line voltage. Response equipment includes capacitors, voltage regulator, voltage sag supporter, circuit interrupter, remote communication equipment, reporting and analysis system.