http://www.marstrom.com/index.php?
option=com_content&view=article&id=125:minesto-ab-brad-new-tidal-
energy-kite&catid=57:customer-reference&Itemid=84

Makani system, underwater.

Marstrom made parts for Minesto experimental paravane and directs us to
a video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qCDRj8TE9Y

The "flying" method of turbine at wing space using conductive tether might be
characterized also as Payne-and-McCutchen-1975 method on basis of their
instructions in their patent:   (click image for full instruction)

OpenIP

The showing of the housefly is sad for me; I am wanting to replace the fly with a kite:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gpywkhp_nUI

But the skills of those who may manage the dance at high
by smart groundworks will have a role in AWE.

 

Sadly, this mechanism is motor-driven & the fly is just being jerked around. The mechanical complications are for show. The cool part is the gearing language of bent brazed rod metal-fab, which a village smith or tinkerer could do on a kilowatt scale. A kitemill may well operate as a Rube Goldberg affair. ======================   Also, why are Payne & McHutcheon so overlooked as root visionaries of modern kite power? Sure, Loyd formalized the physics & refined nomenclature a few years later, but the earliest vision is the true inventive leap.   Noting also that J S Goela is a key pioneer who is still active (with Ollinger at WPI). ASME is charging too much for his papers, any free sources?

  Dr. J. S. Goela Jitendre Goela http://www.energykitesystems.net/0/WPI/index.html Upstroke, downstroke WPI paper holding three references to Goela papers        [Goela (1983), Goela (1979), Goela et al. (1986)] [Project:  sprag clutch; pump jack;  windward boom; pumpjack,  ... ] What were Goela's earliest motions in AWE?

References:

1. Goela, J. S. "Wind Power Through Kites." Mechanical Engineering 42 (1979): 42-43.

2. Goela, J. S., R. Vijaykumar, and R. H. Zimmermann. "Performance Characteristics of a Kite-Powered Pump." Journal of Energy Resources Technology 108 (1986): 188-193.

3. Goela, J.S. "Wind Energy Conversion Through Kites." January 1983.

Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur

4. Goela, J.S., Varma, Sanjeev K. "Effect of Wind Loading on the Design of a Kite Tether." Journal of Energy. Vol. 6 No.5 1982

5. Loyd, Miles L. "Crosswind Kite Power." Journal of Energy. Vol. 4 No.3 May-June 1980.

6. Nicolaides, John D., Speelman, Ralph J., Menard, George L. C. "A Review of Para-Foil Applications." Journal of Aircraft. Vol.7 No.5 Sept.-Oct. 1970.

7. Vijaykumar, R. Performance Characteristics of a Kite-Powered Pump. M. Tech. Thesis, Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Kanpur, Apr. 1984.

8. The Drachen Foundation. 2006. 09 Oct.-Nov. 2006. < http://www.drachen.org

9. Lynn, Peter. Peter Lynn Kiteboarding. 2006. Oct-Nov. 2006. < http://www.peterlynnkiteboarding.com

10. "Wind Turbines." April 2007. < http://www.rpc.com.au/products/windturbines/wind_faq.html  

11. "Kite Wind Generator." 2006. April 2007. < http://www.sequoiaonline.com/blogs/htm/progetto_eng.htm 

12. "Kite –Tugs." 2003. April 2007. < http://foxxaero.homestead.com/indsail_028.html 

13. Lang, David. "Electrical Power Generation Using Kites." Drachen Foundation. December 2005

 

========================================

SEE ALSO:

April 30, 2009:   Design of a Data Acquisition System for a Kite Power Demonstrator 

Goela, Jitendra Singh, "How does a kite fly", Science Today,
January 1982, pp. 44 – 50.

Goela, J. S., "Effect of Wind Loading on the Design of a Kite
Tether", Journal of Energy, Oct. 1982, Vol 6 No. 3, pp. 342 –
343.

Goela, J. S., "Performance Characteristics of a Kite Powered
Pump", Transactions of the ASME, June 1986, Vol. 108, pp. 188 –
193.

Goela, Jitendra Singh, "In Search of a Much Higher Source of
Energy", Yankee, Mar. 1979, pp. 69 – 116.

Goela, J. S. "Wind Power Through Kites", Mechanical Engineering,
June 1979, pp. 42 – 43.

While many AWE researchers and developers may be focusing their efforts on what may be technically possible (certainly a very productive endeavor), it is also important to focus attention on the market would need, at what price and the marketability of the AWE technology.
 
 
Several people have looked into a kite, balloon or kytoon technology that can carry a wind turbine aloft. One variation proposes to carry the electrical generator aloft while a complimentary concept proposes to carry a wind-turbine-driven windlass mechanism aloft and drive a ground-level windlass mechanism that drives a generator.
 
 
People like Dave Santos, Alistair Furey, Bas Lansdorp and several other notable AWE people have built and tested prototype technologies where kites and/or gliders activate ground-level generators.
 
 
There is definately a growing market need for a cost-competitive power generation technology capable of sustaining the power demands of a farm and/or large house in rural areas, with power outputs of 1kW to 10kW. There is hell of a growing need for cost-competitive renewable technology that can generate electric power in the remote regions
of Northern Canada and of Alaska during the winter months. You'll be competing against diesel generators . . . and it costs a small fortune to carry the diesel fuel to the remote location. Many remote communities would welcome AWE technology if were able to generate electric power at relatively low costs.
 
 
Harry

"Hargrave's idea was to use a team of these kites, below which he proposed to suspend a motor and propeller from which a line would be carried to an anchor in the ground. Then by actuating the propeller the whole apparatus would move forward, pick up the anchor and fly away."     Octave Chanute

What if ...  most aircraft were drawn above by kite and
then let go for sustaining altitude by other means? 
How much fuel is being burnt to get aircraft from the ground to cruise altitude?

Up, let go. Next.

Up, let go. Next.

...

 
A highly placed scientist in US govt energy spoke at length with me yesterday. The news is not good.
 
The DOE's alternative energy agenda became a corrupt political fiefdom of Bush administration oil industry hacks. Wind & solar took a back seat to dirty false solutions like nukes, "clean coal", & ethanol.
There is literally no good US gov news for wind energy science this superbly informed source could cite.

Special rope ...

http://www.skymill.it/en/innovation.html

http://www.skymill.it/en/animation.html   Animation

http://www.skymill.it/en/products.html

 

 

All roads lead to Superturbine(R)
-Doug Selsam
http://www.selsam.com

Imagine it as bad as you can imagine and it is 10 times worse.
Discovering how little they care about innovations was perhaps the biggest disappointment of my life. Like when Dorothy discovered the Wizard of Oz was just a little old guy behind a bunch of amateurish pyrotechnics - all flash and NO bang. No bang - and even not even any interest. It's appalling, really.

I can make more progress than all the big labs combined out of my garage. That is the sad thing.
The happy thing is I finally learned to ignore them all and stop wasting my time authoring grant proposals that would be denied by independent reviewers on the basis of lack of a certain business case for the technology. Business - now they know all about business too.

The idea that the labs would do what they say their stated goal is - conducting basic research - take a back seat to compliance with bureaucratic hoop-jumping to the point that the millions that COULD have been spent, say, constructing a workshop and inviting wind energy inventors to build and test new configurations, is instead spent flying to endless conferences where people sit around in groups doing nothing as opposed to sitting in an office doing nothing alone.

It makes them feel better if they are all together doing nothing. That way they can all pat each other on the back, verifying how hard they are "working" (by attending the conference), and lament the fact that "there is no new and better solution". Best case scenario is these "scientists", whose true skill set has become "getting government money", completely abdicate their call to do research, while instead using their time to construct programs by which the old technology is not only grandfathered in as "the" technology, implying that no progress is possible, but then using their resources to implement government programs to give tax breaks to that old technology, while DENYING those same tax breaks to anyone who would try anything new.

"Only certified systems will qualify for the rebates". Well I guess you've got it all sewn up eh bureaucrats? Only the old gets subsidized and the new will not be explored. Wow that is bold.

It is amazing to me how, the moment the government says they will solve some problem, they immediately concoct programs to do just the opposite. We all remember when they wanted to solve poverty by paying people not to work. Similarly here inbstead of finding a solution, they steer government finding to energy systems that are bnot economical solutions on their own. The original idea was that given time, mass production would make the systems cheaper. Instead, they have gotten more expensive and almost entirely dependent on the very government funding that was supposed to have developed their successors. But the labs can imagine no suxch successor - they are experts in the status quo and that is as far as they get before 4:00 rolls around and it's time to go pick up the kids for soccer.

In this case they insure that only the old wind energy technology will qualify for the incentives they call for, while not doing the research they say they will do, not finding people like us to do the research either, and leaving US holding the bag. Best to just ignore them. They are all talk, for the most part. Why drag them kicking and screaming into the 21st century? If we come up with something better and prove it and get it on the market, they will at some point come on board and help. Not like they are useless - lots of good people, with a lot of knowledge, but they just need the guidance of the citizens to get back on track to try NEW things.

As I like to say:
"The Ministry of New Things" has no "Department of New Things".

Doug Selsam
http://www.USWINDLABS.com
~<brawk

Now add more rotors.
Here's a pic:
http://www.speakerfactory.net/TURBINES/INNOVATIONS/7ROT-7FOOT-2GEN/PAGES/kiteturbine.JPG
Doug Selsam

Hello all!

My name is Abe Connally, and I am interested in Airborne Wind Energy!

I am a complete novice to kites and kite theory. I have flown a hand full of kites in my life, so lots of the terminology, components, and techniques described here are pretty foreign to me. I do love the concepts described here, and would love to experiment and put some of these ideas into action.

I am well versed in wind power, and have built many wind generators over the last decade. I designed a small wind generator that can be built from junk, and has been successfully replicated by hundreds of people all over the world (open source plans: http://velacreations.com/chispito.html)

I am always looking for alternative ideas and techniques for producing sustainable energy, and the kite and airborne wind system are very interesting to me.

I would like to start experimenting with some designs here in Mexico. I have tons of small dynamos/generators and lots of bike parts, so I am well stocked for tinkering. My homestead is located in a very rural area, with little interference with anyone, and we get lots of good wind year round. We're at the top of a hill at 6200 ft in elevation.

I would like to start off by building a simple unit that can produce a bit of electricity with a ground-based generator (seems safer to me?). I've got several possible generators, but beyond that, I am kinda clueless.

What design would you suggest I start with to get going? Do you have any tips or suggestions for a complete novice?

I am having a bit of trouble conceptualizing how the kite transfers power to the generator on the ground, but maybe someone can give me a bit of a crash course to get me moving.

Thanks to everyone on this list for the great information contained here and on the AWEIA site.

The prototype video of Skymill.it

http://www.skymill.it/video.flv

Sorry. I guess in some browsers, the video won't show.

But probably will show when clicked directly from the link at the page:
http://www.skymill.it/en/prototype.html

Hi Abe,

Welcome aboard!

Dan'l

Thanks, Dan'l! Glad to be here!

Welcome Abe:
I am up near Los Angeles, with a new facility in the local high desert at 3600 feet elevation. Where in Mexico are you located?
Doug Selsam
http://www.selsam.com

 

---

To: AirborneWindEnergy@yahoogroups.com
From: bobstuart@sasktel.net
Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2010 09:02:11 -0600
Subject: Re: [AWECS] Re: Novice getting started

 

Hey Abe:
I looked at your plans for the wind turbine you designed.
Looks pretty reasonable. Congratulations on a working design.
You already understand how wind power works.
Most people here only understand kites.
You are already ahead of the curve, with regard to energy collection.
But the folks on this list have a lot you can learn about the kite part. This list is mostly kite people.
What city in Mexico are you in? Que Ciudad o parta de tu pais?
Doug Selsam

I am southwest of Chihuahua City, East of the Copper Canyon.

Thanks, Bob.

Yeah, from what I am reading and seeing, that's probably the strategy I'll follow for now.

For me, the overall strategy seems straightforward enough. It's the details I have trouble with, like the mechanism to convert the kite's movement into rotational motion, and things like that.

But, I am slowly gaining ground on the information front!

A simple beginner's how-to would be a great thing. Kinda like, "How to Generate your first Watt with kites" or something similar. Even if it is in the micro or mini scale, it would be useful.

I eventually would like to build something in the residential scale, maybe .5-1 kWh per day.

But to begin with, I just want to get something that produces a little bit, like a model to start playing with.

The Flipwing seems interesting to me as well. Wing-mills might be an easy start for me.

Doug,

Yes, I am very familiar with wind power, and have built many wind generators in the last decade.

I am at ease with reusing "junk" to produce something functional and useful, and I feel that is one of my greatest skills.

Unfortunately, I am a complete novice with kites, and I am just starting to learn some of the terminology and concepts.

I am not in a city, but in a rural area, about 50 miles East of Copper Canyon, in the State of Chihuahua (southwest of Chihuahua City).

Dave,

You are welcome to visit anytime. And there are plenty of wide open fields and high plateaus that would be great for research, testing, or just playing. Some of the peaks around us go up over 9,000 feet, and covered with pine forests.

There are several Tarahumara villages around us, and our own village is approx 1/3-1/2 Tarahumara residents.

If anyone is interested in doing research down here, let me know. I can help secure locations and local support, if needed.

Thanks,
Abe

Abe:
I don't think you're understanding: nobody knows how to generate any power with kites. In fact nobody has shown that kites are even a promising direction of endeavor with regard to harnessing wind energy, from many standpoints, of which longevity is one issue, and intermittancy is another, but a system that even works reliably, at all, under any conditions, comes first.

Someday if a "fair weather" working system is ever achieved, we can begin to address "reality factors", like hail.

If you have designed a working regular wind turbine, you've already made a machine that outperforms any known airborne system.
There is nobody who can tell you: "Abe in order to get a Watt out of the sky, do this" - there is no "this" here.

There are only people who fly kites noticing that there is power up there without any way to get the power.
Everyone else here is a beginner just like you. You've already made as much progress in AWE as anyone else: almost none
BUT you have the advantage of already understanding how to get usable energy from the wind.
:)
Doug Selsam
http://www.selsam.com
714-992-5594

Dave:
I can picture Dave Santos plummeting through the sky, surrounded by falling kilo packages, after having encountered an unauthorized AWE system while transiting the skies of rural Mexico in one of his many small aircraft flights over the region.
:)
Doug S.
PS I have always wanted to visit Copper Canyon and ride the train. Sounds like a cool place!

There's an axiom in the aviation industry that there's a pound of paperwork created for every pound of aircraft parts.  This is mainly to protect passengers, not ground-dwellers.  The great vitality of the Homebuilt aircraft and Ultralight developments came about by allowing risk mainly affecting owners.  I hope that AWE can also find some reasonable middle position.  We might require most failures to crash within a small radius, in the absence of tornadoes.  It is much easier to have controlled failure modes than no failures at all.

I should clarify my statement:
YES people have showed that energy CAN be made using kites.
Obviously, you can start with hanging a windmill from a kite and it will make power.
Of course that would be too simple for most anyway.

But what has NOT been developed is:
a reliable flying wind energy system
a flying wind energy system that can be left unattended
a flying wind energy system that works every day when it is windy, i.e. is self-deploying
a flying wind energy system that produces a useful amount of power at an economical price
a wind energy system that can work in any mode besides a human-attended, brief demo
The essence of what I'm trying to get across here to this beginner, asking for "instructions" is that he already knows as much as anyone else.

BUT
I have an alternative:
Dave Santos can explain to this newbie how it is done.
Dave S., please explain to our new friend, living in Mexico, how airborne wind energy is best done - send him some instructions on how to use a kite to get a reliable and useful amount of energy from the wind, on a consistent basis, and I will bow out and leave it alone.
Later you can explain the longevity of the system and the economics.

Meanwhile, to our new member I say this:
You have built and run several turbines.
You understand that the power comes from hard blades with airfoils at a flat pitch, traveling at over 100 mph.
You already know that the "making power" part is the easy part.
You already know that protection from high winds is the real challenge for any wind energy system.
You already know that reliable daily operation without human attention is the only workable result.
That is what nobody has achieved in this field.

If you want to have someone explain to you that a kite pulls on its line, that the line could therefore drive a winch in pull-out mode, that the kite could then be adjusted to have less pull, that the winch could then use some of the power to pull the line back in, then the cycle repeats - if that is what you want to hear, then you are in the right place.

On the other hand, if you want to use propellers, even a propeller mounted on a kite, then you will find a few people here who do that, but that is mostly being done by the well-financed players such as Makani and Joby, who do not participate on this list.

Even Honeywell had an entry in the airborne wind energy conference, but it turned out to be a rendering, and nobody from Honeywell participates in this list either.

After Dave S. Explains to you how to do airborne wind energy, using reels and winches and kites, imagine the system he explains NOT airborne, but mounted above the ground on support(s). Ask yourself if it seems like a workable system. Ask yourself if such a system could provide a useful amount of power for the cost, and if the intermittent nature of the operation and a portion of the cycle that USES power instead of making power is acceptable, compared to all working systems that provide continuous power.

Anyway my main message, and one I've said before, is that airborne wind energy is a subset of wind energy and to ignore all that has come before is to start over, making all the mistakes made over 3000 years of wind energy development. Most of the kite-flyers are at the stage of development wind energy reached 2000 years ago, when rectangular sails traveling downwind were replaced by triangular sails traveling across the wind.

Most of these folks here just figured out within the last YEAR that travel ACROSS the wind has advantages.
I don't think most still even appreciate that reality. Imagine if your wind turbine used paddles traveling downwind then upwind instead of blades spinning - how much more material would be used to gather how much less power?

Most do not appreciate the amount of power lost when traveling downwind. Most would like to gloss over the power-draining uptake cycle as though it hardly matters if your system is not working half the time, using power rather than making power.

In short, without any economic standards of performance to meet, it is easy to say you have the makings of a working system, however at this time there is no system you can buy and run day after day unattended, despite millions and millions of dollars thrown at it.

And with all those millions thrown at it, there is no system that produces an economically useful amount of power for any use, from any system. Hey all I'm saying is apply the normal standards that you apply to any other wind energy system, and you don't HAVE what would normally be considered a working system.

Yes of course a kite pulling on its string can be demonstrated to produce some energy, since E=force x distance - that could be accomplished by a simple thought experiment. The question is, how to make it consistent and useful, and nobody has yet achieved that.

:)
Doug Selsam
Doug@Selsam.com

Yeah I was hanging out with Fort Felker at a bar one night after he had spoken at the AWE conference at Stanford. Nice guy. He's one of the only people I've ever heard speaking on the subject who made any sense. The only one with his feet on the ground. I was relieved that there was anyone who could speak the language of wind energy and who understood the issues.

His main message was the same as mine: Most people pursuing airborne wind energy really have no clue as to what issues working wind energy systems have to address.
You can extract from that what you will with regard to paperwork and regulations, but his main point was that this field of endeavor has by far most of its work ahead of it.

Question to ask yourself: if you could travel across this entire world right now, can you point to ONE SINGLE airborne wind energy system in operation, deployed, flying, making power, at this moment?

Thanks for listening
Doug Selsam
http://www.selsam.com

dave santos schrieb:
...
This is perhaps the easiest and most practical method so far, but it is a
specialist use. I have used kite boats myself; for example pulled a 30 ft.
sailing yacht with a single Flexifoil with 4 m span (and I have a stack of six),
and my friends and I have buit a number of solar-powered electric boats of
similar size, but lighter.

Now the electric boats could also use the water propeller and motor to generate
a few kW in favorable winds, using the kites, thus charging the batteries even
with no sun or solar panels. The propeller is the wrong way around, but will
still work. I never did this, but there is no reason why it wouldn't work.

Theo Schmidt

Doug,

You are right for the actual situation.DaveS is right also.But can you precise your position:implementation of AWECS is not possible because the level of components (automation system etc.) is not enough now or for any future (non possibility being inherent for any kite systems) ?

I have not yet the response (at least for macroenergy scale AWECS).Fort Felker' paper indicates the great and numerous difficulties but also implies it can be possible (see the page 4 with association between wind turbine and aircraft).The window of possibility is narrow but can exist.

What is the other ways for harnessing huge swept areas in high altitude? 

Pierre B

 

 

Theo:
Yeah and you could also add a long cable so the boat pulls a car, and have the car pull a donkey, have the Donkey pull a cart, and have the cart pulled up a hill, and have Dave Santos get in the cart at the top of the hill and then ride it down with a generator attached to the wheels and charge a cel phone.
How 'bout that? The Rube Goldberg high-flying cel-phone charger - most expensive/unreliable method yet developed to charge your phone.
Could we add some aprings? magnets? a feather boa?
Is there one working anywhere in the world today?
:)
Doug S.

Attachments :

Doug schrieb:
You don't seem to get it! ;-) In the environment of a boat with *no*
cable going ashore, every little bit of energy is valuable so it
commands a far higher price than ashore. People spend large sums of
money for relatively weak and heavy marine engines, generators and even
combined-heat-and-power Stirling generator/heaters. Or solar panels or
wind generators, both of which are limited in size with the rigging of
most sailing yachts.

Now with kites you are much less limited in size. While not practical in
a marina or a tight mooring, there is no problem flying a kite at anchor
or when under way.

Sailing yachts are quite heavy so carrying lead storage batteries is not
a big deal, they can even double as ballast. If you have a wind
generator *and* some solar cells *and* a water generator (some
windgenerators have a conversion kit, basically a towed screw), and an
electric inboard or outboard motor, you don't need any combustion
engines and can still keep going in any direction in most conditions
while at the same time powering your onboard electric stuff. You can fly
kites on sailing yachts in spite of the rigging, but it is only fun on
those with unstayed masts like junk-rigged boats.

I've done all the above, just not at the same time. No donkeys needed.

Cheers, Theo

PS Kiteboarding has become quite popular these days. Now if you think
that the sort of person who kiteboards or windsurfs might be prone to
using those dreadful jetski things or waterski behind powerboats, if
kiteboards or sailboards didn't exist. Thus the kites are indirectly
generating power by *saving* this power (concept of Negawatts).

What is to be the definition of "autonomous AWECS flying"?

Will the AWE Community come up with a consesus?

All welcome.

Most of my kites do automous crosswind flying; they go one way then the other way for hours on end; this has been the case for decades.  It seems to be a gift of not bringing in precise stable symmetry.  What is difficult for me is to make a kite that does not do the left then right then left then right, etc. thing.  

What is your finding on this?

JoeF