I have written and published an
article explaining the reasoning of giant arch kites.
This is your chance for editorial before the article gets distributed more broadly.
The logic of giant kites
Wind power is viable, only, without towers.
Wind carries hundreds of times
the total human energy demand. To mine it, standard turbines would
require impossible amounts of steel and concrete.
A new power race has begun.
Squadrons of kite machines
prepare to battle for dominance in air power.
Kites to harvest the sustainable power we crave.
Kites are powerful. So powerful
that Americas Cup yachting banned them. Pulling one yacht is easy.
How can you pull enough power for cities and cars?
Wind power comes from how much
air you move through. Large, fast wings are the design goal for
airborne wind energy (AWE) engineers.
Mechanical power is how quick,
hard and far you move things. Link a strong fast pull to a generator
that gives you power.
Some proposed designs are over
1km wide. Others have flying turbines whose tips travel at close to
the speed of sound. The power is all there.
Large, fast, lightweight AWE
machines have really arrived.
The battleground
Contenders for AWE dominance face
obvious challenges. Kites are hard to control. Large air-plane wings
are expensive and heavy. Land and airspace is limited. The standard
rules of aviation airspace apply.
The appeal of AWE lead
engineering teams to surprisingly varied solutions.
As well as the design war, a
propaganda war has now begun. Well resourced government and corporate
teams spar against university spin off's, charities and open network
teams.
Weaker designs will fall on the
way. Gentlemen (and lady financiers), it's time to place your bets on
the winning architecture.
Scoring
Successful engineering is
measured by growth rate and return on investment. History is littered
with dead engineering ventures that came so far and so close.
Previous lessons make this battle all the more intriguing.
Adrian Gambier (Frauhofer
Institute of Wind Energy) says that complexity grids and RAMS
(Reliability, Availability, Maintainability, Safety) dependability
studies are key to spotting winners early.
The teams
Small networked teams like Kpower
and Kite Power Cooperative, claim to hit these dependability metrics
square on using new massive soft kite forms. But they seem committed
to testing novel ideas before seeking funding.
Makani Power, sponsored by Google
and ARPA-e may seem the riskiest design of the bunch. A robotic rigid
wing with dual mode propeller / turbine blades generates at altitude.
But the Makani wing only flies in circles to generate.
Ampyx Power from The Netherlands
also use a fast rigid wing. Ampyx have grown beyond initial funding
stages. They now raise capital on their own website. Sleek control
and generation demonstrations have helped.
Many more design teams are
competing, and like Ampyx using the “yo-yo” method. In yo-yo
standard kites fly across the wind pulling their tether from a
generator drum on the ground. After generation the kite is wound back
in.
Why do they risk it?
It's certainly not all money and
power.
Existing turbine dynamics were
already highly optimised but barely touched at atmospheric energy.
Radical changes were needed to reach the stronger high altitude wind
energy. Oddly kite power has ancient history.
Kites are also fun of course, but
now, maybe even necessary.
The winning design can hopefully
save the world from an energy and
global warming crisis.
Coming clean
That was my best objective view
of AWE. I admit, I am heavily involved in Kite Power Cooperative.
Generally speaking AWE scientists and engineers are a friendly lot.
We recently shared research data at conference.
But business is business. Get it
right first time.
My job is; hopefully save the
world from an energy and global warming crisis. It's an odd remit. So
I'm going to tell you exactly how I intend to go about it.
It's new, it's scary and
web-like. That description applies to the machine solutions and the
team dynamic.
Open Hardware
All Kite Power Cooperative IP &
designs are available as open source hardware. This way, designs are
open to scrutiny and continuously improved by expert online forums.
Anybody can use our designs under the creative commons 3.0 license.
We ask that you feedback and care for the community you affect.
Our designs are simple,
fail-safe, scalable, inherently self controlled, with low embodied
energy. They are insurable, locally empowering and beautiful.
If I do say so myself...
Cooperative teams
Cooperatives are uncompromising
in aspiration. We have a common goal. Environmentally and ethically
sound energy security. Our design motives are pure, untouched by
shareholder concerns.
Members are eager to do their
bit. Please feel welcome to join.
This article is in part, a call
to anyone who can help create better solutions.
Giant kites are scary.
Absolutely they are. Our designs
are primarily crafted for safety.
Arch kite systems connect to the
earth at multiple points. This prevents catastrophic single point
failures.
Huge power is implicit in our
designs, so we use proven principles from harsh marine environments.
Many of our arch designs resemble trawler fishing nets. These designs
can be inverted to work in tidal flows.
Water is 800 times denser than
air. Rope and fishing nets, have survived and evolved through
centuries of marine testing.
Arch kites can be launched with
strict multi stage control bridling. This way gusts are not able to
move huge architectures beyond human control.
Working with the earth
We are the only team using the
earth itself as a main component. By staking arch kites to the ground
in multiple locations we can be confident of yaw stability and
fail-safe modes of our kites.
Leading edge integrity is another
advantage of multiple ground contact points. Tensioned crosswind load
lines ensure that our sails present a smooth profile.
Tensioned arch systems are
material efficient. So we can build giant kites with low flying
weight. This returns the best power to weight ratio of any design.
Arches only “fly” multi
tethered lightweight tensile ropes and fabrics. Arch kites are
therefore more dependable and safer in the air. That's important for
certification and insurance.
Efficient land and air use
Arch kites are held across the
wind. They fill an area of sky with sails. An arch kite therefore
engages with more moving air in any given second than faster designs.
So for the same land footprint an arch kite can generate more power
than a standard kite.
Arches are low-complexity devices
and use off the shelf materials.
Modern Dyneema®
rope has amazing strength. It floats on water. Ropes can transmit
power more efficiently than electricity lines and oil pipelines.
Generators are more efficient
when they are big. And less deadly when they are on the land. Arch
ropes, bridles and load-paths have been ganged to work together.
Pulling generators round in both flight phases unlike yo-yo designs.
Team flexibility
How many TED talks, tell you to
do what you love?
Kite Power Cooperative and other
open source teams do just that. Business development works are
discussed and issued openly and cooperatively, but personal
motivations and inspiration usually take top priority.
I've been playing in the wind
ever since I was born in a storm on the equinox.
We'll get around to raising cash
soon.
One current group priority is
redressing publication bias. A book on AWE by Airborne Wind Energy
Consortium (AWEC) was published by springer. The book made no mention
of low-complexity or open source architectures.
So today I'm working on that. The
forum will edit this article for me tonight.
Ahead of the curve
Open source hardware (like
software) relies on being better. It is built with passion for an
optimum outcome. Being open from the start allows us to prioritise
our IP artworks and openly find support networks.
Cooperatives are some of the
biggest businesses on the planet. Businesses with a social structure
survive market fluctuation.
Keep your eye out for giant kite
structures.
Coming soon.
Roderick Read,
Windswept and Interesting Ltd
for Kite Power Coop
