Abstract In this paper, we present for the first time a complete energy harvesting system fo triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) that includes as a first stage a half-wave rectifier, and as a second stage an electrostatic automatic switch combined with a buck converter. This simple two-stage system allows to deal with the very high output voltages of TENGs: the system can power a commercial low-voltage output regulator, which cannot be realized by directly charging the storage capacitor only with diode rectifiers. Different from the previous works using dissipating transformers for voltage stepping-down or switches integrated with the TENG for impedance matching, this work demonstrates the properties of high power pumping up, potential size reduction and low power dissipations.