TUDelft flying high, Next AWEC conference in europe
Quick post today, here's a new video showing the great progress being made at TUDelft. They've made good progress on the kites working with Mutiny, you can clearly see the modified attachment points and bridle on the in-flight video. This video also shows the teams first autonomous controller deployed on the kite.
Also should have mentioned ages ago, the 2011 Airborne Wind Energy conference, awec2011 is at KU Leuven in Belgium at the end of May, keynotes lined up include the elusive Stephan Wrage from Skysails aswell as Corwin Hardham (Makani Power) and Wubbo Ockels (TUDelft).
After a protracted blog-silence whilst I finished my phd thesis (now submitted!) I'll now be updating the blog again whenever there is news to report. 2011 should be an exciting year for Airborne Wind Energy, with more new startups, established energy and engineering firms moving in and some exciting projects in the pipeline.
To start things off, here's a video featuring Swisskitepower which is to my knowledge the first feature on Airborne wind energy on French TV, congrats to Corey and the team for the publicity!
Also Bas Lansdorp from Ampyx Power had a slot at TED Amsterdam, it's a brief talk but has some nice shots of the kiteplane and probably the best shots of their winch system to date. They seem to be making good progress and Bas is a great ambassador for the technology.
Two more sets of funding have been announced this week, Ampyx Power, the Dutch spinout from TUDelft, who have been working on their rigid wing, ground based power generation concept (see pic) since '08, today announced new EU funding, to continue their autopilot development and the scaling up process.
Makani power, the Alameda CA based flying generator startup, also have been announced as recipients of c.$3m of ARPA-E funding, see their announcement for details.
No time to write much today but here's a video from the group at Rowan University:
The kite doesn't appear to be instrumented and I can't see a camera so i'd guess that the control is either passive or manual? I'll update this post if/when I find out.
On an ever so slightly larger scale, here's a video taken from a small airplane of a Skysails system in operation. The scale of the kite is seriously impressive. I'm not sure I realised how close-in the pod is kept to the kite. For some reason the kite is being flown at a higher angle than I would normally expect, maybe the ship is turning/tacking...
Couldn't resist a second post on this. The French project below I found because I was googling for info on the Norwegian startup Kitemill. The french project is called .... Kitemill!
So instead of working like I should be, I googled for some info on Skymill, a group in the states that were at the HAWP conference last year with a cool concept using an autogyro as a kite to drive a reel at ground level as a pumping generator (if i remember right). Instead I found an Italian project that uses a kite and balloon to raise a propellor coupled mechanically to a generator at ground level, not convinced by this one I have to say! The video on the website will save me any more typing to explain.
Maybe people are going to have to be a little more imaginative with their names, there is hope though -google is not called 'SearchPage' is it? Alternatively I can save future startups time and they can pick a name from this list:
SkyGen SkyPower KitePower AeroPower AeroGen SkyTech Altigen LiftTech Crosswind Power Crosswind Energy Elevated Wind Energy etc...
Still have about 10k words to go on the thesis but the end is in sight and seeing as the wind hasn't picked up enough yet to go testing I thought it might be time for a quick post.
Here's a video showing the new prototype from Windlift, which is a departure from their old sled system to a reel based device. The test shows power peaking at 3kW at 8-12 mph though I'm not sure how high that wind measurement was taken or the size of the surf kite being used. Either way it shows some great progress over the last year. The base seems to be passively rotated and its inertia means that it's not following the direction of the kite too closely, (we had this same issue on a proto system here at Sussex) but it's not going to be too hard to sort that out.
I also found this website for a student project that I hadn't seen before at the Ecole Centrale de Lille, also for a kite based system. I saw this graphic of the system concept and was impressed to hear that they had built it.
This video shows it being tested. Having seen the scale, You can see how it was affordable as a student project! They have an interesting way of doing the steering at ground level.
Just saw this video today featuring the Kitegen project on the Italian TV show 'Superquark'.
At about 2 mins 45 and 4 mins 50 you can see the system that featured in their last CGI animated visualisation in actual construction. Note that I actually have no idea if this actual build is supposed to be running a 3 MW generator, but this article on their website said that this was the case for the STEM concept.
Wow, at this point I should point out that Kitegen have been testing the largest capacity airborne wind energy system that I know of at 30kW for some years (data for auxiliary power generation capacity of the Skysails system is not available). They were the first commercial AWE project running if Skysails is discounted, and they have a considerable patent portfolio. But... 30kw to 3000 would be an ambitious step. I'd love to know more about the motivation for the design concept, especially the rotating boom, which presumably would need active control, or at least damping to prevent its inertia taking it in an opposite direction to the kite at each extreme of the lying 8? Would a tower not be simpler? Also, it would be great to know what kite they are going to use, an 500sqm LEI doesn't seem particularly practical, and the L/D is not great. I guess we'll have to wait and see!
If any readers out there speak Italian and can glean more information from this than I have please enlighten us!
