Airborne Wind Energy

Practical use of AWE systems

Roland Schmehl

22 November 2024

CC BY 4.0

Outline

Max Dereta

Learning objectives

In this lecture, practical aspects of using AWE systems for renewable energy generation are considered.

  • Investigate the wind resource available to AWE systems
  • Assess other aspects that are relevant to technology deployment

Content

AWE resource potential 1

Wind needs to be treated as a statistical property, varying in space and time.

Consider available wind power density at a specific location and operational height.

The conversion process is not taken into account.

The analysis is described in Bechtle et al. (2019).

Atmospheric boundary layer

Stull RB. An introduction to boundary layer meteorology, 1988. doi:10.1007/978-94-009-3027-8

Higher altitude wind



Average wind data measured from 1961 to 1980 at de Bilt, The Netherlands

Wind at sea level

Wind speed ~100 m, near sea level conditions

Wind in planetary boundary layer low

Wind speed ~1,500 m, planetary boundary, low

Wind in planetary boundary layer high

Wind speed ~3,500 m, planetary boundary, high

Wind in vorticity layer

Wind speed ~5,000 m, vorticity

Wind in jet stream layer

Wind speed ~10,500 m, jet stream

AWE resource potential 2

Filter and normalize wind speed data.

Reduce dimension of data using a principal component analysis (PCA).

Clustering wind profile shapes (k-means clustering).

Conversion process taken into account by quasi-steady model (QSM).

The analysis is described in Schelbergen et al. (2020).

Performance parameters

Power curve

Power Curve SKN-PN-14, released March 22th 2024

Annual energy production

Use the statistical wind speed data and the performance model.

The analysis is described in Schelbergen and Schmehl (2020).

Technology deployment

What are the societal, environmental, economic, regulatory and operational challenges that need to be addressed for a successful deployment of AWE technology?

What is needed?

Approach

These are way too many aspects so we need to focus in this lecture on a few key aspects.

Operational safety

Max Dereta

Reliability and safety of AWES

The safety analysis is described in Salma et al. (2019).

Regulations

The assessment is described in Salma and Schmehl (2023).

Life cycle assessment

AWE and HAWT park

Van Hagen et al. (2023)

References

Bechtle, P., Schelbergen, M., Schmehl, R., Zillmann, U., Watson, S.: Airborne wind energy resource analysis. Renewable Energy. 141, 1103–1116 (2019). doi:10.1016/j.renene.2019.03.118
Faggiani, P., Schmehl, R.: Design and economics of a pumping kite wind park. In: Schmehl, R. (ed.) Airborne wind energy – advances in technology development and research. pp. 391–411. Springer, Singapore (2018). doi:10.1007/978-981-10-1947-0_16
Kruijff, M., Ruiterkamp, R.: A roadmap towards airborne wind energy in the utility sector. In: Schmehl, R. (ed.) Airborne wind energy – advances in technology development and research. pp. 643–662. Springer, Singapore (2018). doi:10.1007/978-981-10-1947-0_26
Noth, A., Siegwart, R., Engel, W.: Autonomous solar UAV for sustainable flights. In: Valavanis, K.P. (ed.) Advances in unmanned aerial vehicles: State of the art and the road to autonomy. pp. 377–405. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht (2007). doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-6114-1_12
Salma, V., Friedl, F., Schmehl, R.: Improving reliability and safety of airborne wind energy systems. Wind Energy. 23, 340–356 (2019). doi:10.1002/we.2433
Salma, V., Ruiterkamp, R., Kruijff, M., Paassen, M.M.R. van, Schmehl, R.: Current and expected airspace regulations for airborne wind energy systems. In: Schmehl, R. (ed.) Airborne wind energy – advances in technology development and research. pp. 703–725. Springer, Singapore (2018). doi:10.1007/978-981-10-1947-0_29
Salma, V., Schmehl, R.: Operation approval for commercial airborne wind energy systems. Energies. 16, 3264 (2023). doi:10.3390/en16073264
Schelbergen, M., Kalverla, P.C., Schmehl, R., Watson, S.J.: Clustering wind profile shapes to estimate airborne wind energy production. Wind Energy Science. 5, 1097–1120 (2020). doi:10.5194/wes-5-1097-2020
Schelbergen, M., Schmehl, R.: Validation of the quasi-steady performance model for pumping airborne wind energy systems. Journal of Physics: Conference Series. 1618, 032003 (2020). doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1618/3/032003
Tennekes, H.: The simple science of flight: From insects to jumbo jets. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA (2009)
Van Hagen, L., Petrick, K., Wilhelm, S., Schmehl, R.: Life cycle assessment of a multi-megawatt airborne wind energy system. Energies. 16, 1750 (2023). doi:10.3390/en16041750
Wilhelm, S.: Life cycle assessment of electricity production from airborne wind energy. In: Schmehl, R. (ed.) Airborne wind energy – advances in technology development and research. pp. 727–750. Springer, Singapore (2018). doi:10.1007/978-981-10-1947-0_30

Questions?





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