Airborne Wind Energy

AWE in the future energy system

Roland Schmehl

29 November 2024

CC BY 4.0

Outline

Max Dereta

Learning objectives

In this lecture, airborne wind energy is regarded as part of the future energy system, distinguishing remote micro grids as well as large-scale integrated deployment. Also the economics of the technical are now taken into account. The scaling of AWE technologies is a key question in this lecture.

Scaling AWE systems

Kitepower kites in different sizes (2018).

Soft-kites

Kitepower kite with flattened wing area of 100 m2 (2018).

Recap: current prototypes

Developer Prototype name Electricity generation location Kite type Launching & landing concept Wing span (m) Wing surface area (m2) Kite mass (kg) Min.–max. operation height (m) Rated power (kW)
Skysails SKN-PN-14 ground soft wing static mast 15.6–22a 90b, 180c 170d 200-400 200
Kitepower Falcon ground soft wing winch 13.3a 47b, 60c 73d 70-400 100
Kitenergy KE60 Mark II ground soft wing winch 12.5a 42b, 50c 100-400 60
Toyoya Mothership v11 ground soft wing winch 8 8 5.2 300-600 1
CPECC Airpower ground parachute pilot parachute 40a 1256b 1480 500-3000 2400e
Wind Fisher MAG1 ground Magnus rotor winch 1.7 0.32f 1.0 0-50 0
EnerKíte EK30/Enerwing ground hybrid wing HTOL rotating arm 8-14 4-8 22.7 50-300 30
Mozaerog AP3 ground hard wing HTOL catapult 12 12 475 200-450 150
Kitemill KM1 ground hard wing VTOL quad-plane 7.4 3 54 200-500 20
TwingTec Twing (T29) ground hard wing VTOL tri-plane 5.5 2 25 up to 300 10
Windswept Kite Turbine ground rotary pilot kite 6×1h 6×0.2 10 1
someAWE MAR3 ground rotary pilot kite 4×1i 4×0.15 0.5
Kitekraft SN9 onboard box wing VTOL tailsitter 2.4 1.08 32 100j 12
Windlift C1 onboard hard wing VTOL tailsitter 3.8 0.95 11.3 30-100 2

a projected wing span
b projected wing surface area
c flat (laid-out) wing surface area
d excluding tether, but including suspended kite control unit and bridle line system
e rated generator power

f rotor diameter × width
g formerly Ampyx Power
h rotor diameter 4.48 m
i rotor diameter 3.5 m
j tether length

MegAWES kite

Eijkelhof and Schmehl (2022)

MegAWES kite

Eijkelhof and Schmehl (2022)

Fixed-wing kites

Joshi et al. (2024)

Effect of mass when scaling

Square–cube law

When a physical object maintains the same density and is scaled up, its volume and mass are increased by the cube of the multiplier while its surface area increases only by the square of the same multiplier.

Effect of mass on cut-in wind speed

AWE in the future energy system

References

Eijkelhof, D., Schmehl, R.: Six-degrees-of-freedom simulation model for future multi-megawatt airborne wind energy systems. Renewable Energy. 196, 137–150 (2022). doi:10.1016/j.renene.2022.06.094
Joshi, R., Schmehl, R., Kruijff, M.: Power curve modelling and scaling of fixed-wing ground-generation airborne wind energy systems. Wind Energy Science. 9, 2195–2215 (2024). doi:10.5194/wes-9-2195-2024

Questions?





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