With luck, the airborne wind energy space will sink back into academic research efforts involving kitesurfing kites at University of Delft. It’s useful to continue to play with things in academia, and it’s a domain with a lot of engineering complexity that’s a good proving ground for engineers who can go on to do useful things as a result.
European-based public utility E.ON SE announced this week that it is investing in airborne wind energy, an innovative type of wind energy based around offshore tethered drones.
Altaeros and their airborne blimp wind generator have benefited from a reasonable amount of press over the past few weeks. They had asked CleanTechnica to provide coverage as well, but when pressed for more details on the technology, were unwilling to provide them. The airborne wind energy space was given overview … [continued]
Sky Windpower is an airborne wind generation system that is often given glowing reviews in the inadequately critical popular and technical press. In 2008, they were listed in TIME Magazine’s Best Inventions of the Year. In 2011, they were featured on the front cover of Popular Mechanics. They continue to … [continued]
Kite-based wind generation was first proposed in the 1940s, the seminal power potential paper was published in 1980 and it was first demonstrated in 1986. So why isn’t there a single production system or even an a quarter-scale production prototype in existence today? Each of the combinations of design choices … [continued]
Almost a year ago, Google took a 100% ownership position in Makani, an airborne wind energy company. It had previously held a $15 million position in the company, but after the tragic death of one of its founders, Makani’s future was less certain. Now it has deep pockets in Google … [continued]
