High-Altitude Wind Power with Yo-Yo Kites

August 24th, 2012 by James Ayre

The most powerful and energy productive winds on the Earth have been unusable by conventional wind turbines because of their high altitude. But a new wind power startup with an innovative design is aiming to remedy that, harvesting energy from these high-altitude and high-power winds using giant kites and a ‘yo-yo’ design.

The startup, named Kite Gen, is approaching the challenge of high-altitude wind power in a very different way from their competitors.

“The Kite Gen system leaves all of the generating equipment on the ground, saving weight and money in the air, and instead uses the physical traction from the kite’s tether to generate electricity.”

After being launched, the kites are piloted automatically in a predefined flight path by using on-board sensors in order to maximize the power generated. The kites are bound to the ground with ‘Dyneema tethers’, and the pulling force exerted on the tethers is what generates the electricity.

“When the kites reach the end of their tether (while turning spinning drums attached to alternators), the angle of the kites are repositioned to present minimum resistance to the wind and the cables are then rewound to begin another phase of power generation.”

The rewinding of the cables does consume some energy according to the researchers, but it’s a small fraction of the energy that is produced.

So far, Kite Gen has raised around $12 million USD in project funding, and is looking to bring that up to around $62 million. With that the company says that it will be able to improve the technology and build a 150-megawatt wind farm with 50 of their kite units.

Source: TreeHugger
Image Credits: Kite Gen

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Tags: high altitude kite power generation startup, High altitude wind power yo-yo kites, kite gen, kite power, kite wind power, wind power kites yo yo

About the Author

James Ayre 's background is predominantly in geopolitics and history, but he has an obsessive interest in pretty much everything. After an early life spent in the Imperial Free City of Dortmund, James followed the river Ruhr to Cofbuokheim, where he attended the University of Astnide. And where he also briefly considered entering the coal mining business. He currently writes for a living, on a broad variety of subjects, ranging from science, to politics, to military history, to renewable energy. You can follow his work on Google+.

George

Why turn the kite out of the wind when you can instead remotely signal the kite to spill wind – perhaps even mechanically? Would take much less energy to pull in this way, no?
Anne

The first time I saw this idea it was promoted by Dutch astronaut Wubbo Ockels, now professor renewable energy at TU Delft. There is a vid here by James May: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYRTuWyqIsc

TU Delft named their apparatus the ‘laddermolen’ or ‘laddermill’. You’ll be able to find more videos of trials. They have been working on this since at least 2007. It is nice to see there are more companies trying this idea.
- http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan
  
  thanks. i thought it looked familiar.
http://www.facebook.com/matthew.t.peffly Matthew Todd Peffly

I think the ttwo biggest blocks for this approach, and all the “flying turbine” approaches is: (1) Getting startup funds, it is new, the power sector is very slow to new. (2) Flight paths, you need a big area where planes don’t flight. It should NOT be a problem, but because it will be for a while. Hopefully they will be popping up soon.
- http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan
  
  Totally agree. And nice pun at the end.
dynamo.joe

So, isn’t this the perfect solution for deep off-shore wind power?
That roundish ground structure seems like it would be pretty bouyant if enclosed. You need only tether it to the sea floor unlike the current off-shore wind towers, which are actually built into the sea floor. And for the NIMBY’s a much smaller structure overall.
I’m not sure how big that kite is, but could you even see it a mile off-shore?
- http://www.facebook.com/matthew.t.peffly Matthew Todd Peffly
  
  I think you will see then on the western planes first. Much friendlier environment. Will want to be able to monitor them and correct design issues. Also low population means that you just need a area out of the main flight paths. Not sure how they will deal with personal planes. With a 3 min speed scan of their sight I don’t see the planned height. But we do see
  
  “The most favourable altitude in term of wind power is, quite difficult to exploit, at approx. 10,000 m (32,800 ft), where average wind speeds can exceed 45 m/s (equal to 162 km/h or 100 mph).”and”Every point on the Earth surface, on average, 800 m above it, has enough wind power to be exploited with a Kite Gen power plant for energy generation.”
  
  So we are not talking close to the ground, and that cable will not be super easy to see. In the long term they may end up off shore, but they will want to prove then on shore first where the costs are lower.