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Kite Power Systems (http://www.kitepowersystems.com/ http://www.kitepowersystems.com/) came to give a talk to the Institute of Physics in Cambridge earlier this
by timthorn 9y ago
Kite Power Systems (http://www.kitepowersystems.com/ http://www.kitepowersystems.com/) came to give a talk to the Institute of Physics in Cambridge earlier this year. They use a dual kite system where one kite is generating whilst the second is being pulled back in, and having demonstrated a 40kW system are about to deploy a 500kW system.
- ZenoArrow 9y agoLooks promising. My only question would be, how do they plan to recover the energy from the devices? Did they cover that in the talk in Cambridge?
- cracell 9y agoWhat you mean? There's a cable on the tether so the drone/kite is always connected to the grid. Same as a traditional turbine.
- ZenoArrow 9y agoOh okay. The video on the site implied they'd be taking the devices into deep sea environments. I guess there's still restrictions on where they can be used.
- timthorn 9y agoThey are (for some values of deep) - KPS is looking at deployment offshore, where the tether will be less of an issue, they can go to scale and the wind is more reliable. The kites are expected to be cheaper to maintain and install than traditional turbines, and can be mounted on old turbine bases.
- Grustaf 9y agoIf you mean how to turn the energy in the wind into electricity in the first place (rather than transporting it to the grid) there are two basic ways: Ground generation, where you let the kite unwind the tether and have generator connected to the spool. Occasionally you need to expend energy to wind it back up, but this can easily be made work out as a net positive. Airborne generation, where you have small turbines with generators on the wing and lead the power down through the tether.