Will Airborne Wind Replace Conventional Wind?

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Join us on Wednesday in a livestream with airborne wind expert and Kitepower co-founder Dr Roland Schmehl: https://youtu.be/6gvJKzr-dnE

Are we about to be carried away by the power of Airborne Wind Energy? This is a technology that promises to open up access to better wind resources than traditional wind can, at a lower cost, with lower environmental impact. The technology has been around for decades now… but why hasn't it quite taken off yet?

Airborne wind energy involves a kite or tethered glider or possibly a blimp that captures wind energy high above the ground where wind speeds are much faster and therefore more power is available. In addition to being able to access a better wind resource, material requirements can be much lower than standard wind turbines because there's no need for a tower or a foundation. And the faster wind speeds mean a smaller device can deliver the same power. So, less materials and more power. That must mean cheaper energy, right? So why are we still bothering with normal wind turbines then?

Well, airborne wind is quite a lot more complicated than ground-based turbines and none have come close to reaching the promised potential yet. In this video I'm going talk about the different kinds of airborne wind technology and then look into a few of the challenges that remain to be solved before airborne wind can go from the *possibility* of cheaper energy to the reality.

The Engineering with Rosie team is:
Rosemary Barnes: presenter, producer, writer
Kevin Irman: research, calculations, assistant editor
Javi Diez: editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/javierdiezsuarez/?locale=en_US

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Bookmarks:
00:00 Intro
00:22 What is Airborne Wind Energy?
01:08 Why bother with Airborne Wind?
02:05 Different Airborne Wind Designs
02:29 Fly-gen vs Ground-gen
03:50 Soft-wing vs Hard-wing
04:48 What about birds?
05:45 Thanks to Brilliant for sponsoring this video!
06:36 Airborne Wind has been around for a while
07:45 Improvements in Airborne Wind
10:07 How does the output compare to traditional wind?
10:38 Will Airborne Wind take over traditional wind?
11:16 The Issue of Autonomous Operation
12:09 Non-Ideal Flight Conditions
13:14 Regulations for Airborne Wind
12:48 Rosie’s thoughts on the future of Airborne Wind Tech
15:18 Outro

Sources:
Makani
https://x.company/projects/makani/

Kitepower
https://thekitepower.com/

Kitenergy
https://kitenrg.com/

Skysails
https://skysails-power.com/

Airborne Wind Energy Systems: A review of the technologies - Cherubini et al, 2015
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2015.07.053

Airborne Wind Energy - Schmehl et al, 2013
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39965-7

Getting airborne – the need to realise the benefits of airborne wind energy for net zero - BVG Associates
https://airbornewindeurope.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/BVGA-Getting-Airborne-White-Paper-220929.pdf

This video was sponsored by Brilliant.