Amazing Kite Turbine By Scottish Inventor Engineer Rod Read - Kite Power Plant System

As countries move to reduce their carbon emissions, wind generators have become the most widely implemented renewable energy sources. However, wind turbines are expensive to set up and operate. Construction consumes vast amounts of energy and resources, requires significant long-term investment and involves complex planning procedures. The use of kites as wind power generators avoids the need for a fixed tower, enabling access to higher altitudes, and hence stronger, more laminar airflow. Thus energy creation is cheaper and more efficient than the wind turbine alternative.
Airborne Wind Energy Systems (AWES) are not a new concept. However, many systems under development, such as Google’s Makani, tend to require complex computer controlled hardware to steer the flying turbines accurately, making them expensive and introducing operational risk.
Hebridean engineer, Rod Read, has developed a system using spinning kites tethered to a ground-based turbine. (think of the spinning red parafoils on the BBC ident) The turbine only uses kite parts without needing controls, making it lightweight and affordable. Working in an open source hardware environment, Rod has spent the last five years perfecting his design and his company is now selling these scalable kite power systems online. Further R&D on his system designs is being carried out in conjunction with the University of Strathclyde and TU Delft in the Netherlands.
Rod explains “Power to weight ratio is key to the efficiency of flying wind turbines. The advantage of using kites is their lightweight construction. My system ties the kites in a simple rigging arrangement which can be set up quickly and easily, even in terrain where you couldn’t transport a regular turbine. This first system is designed to be affordable for personal use, for example when camping, but the science which guided the design allows it to be scaled up to provide enough power for grid and utility uses.”

Part of Scotland will soon be powered by kites - The offshore kite farm is expected to generate 'several hundred megawatts' of power by 2025.

Name a method of generating power that's cheap, efficient, sustainable and sounds like something Mary Poppins dreamed up after downing 20 teaspoons of sugar. That's right -- kite power. One of the world's first non-experimental, kite-driven power stations will be established offshore in Southern Scotland, at the Ministry of Defence's West Freugh Range near Stranraer. UK company Kite Power Solutions plans to install a 500 kilowatt system that it expects will generate 'several hundred megawatts' of energy by 2025, Independent reports.

The project is backed by multinational oil company Royal Dutch Shell and the UK government, though Kite Power Solutions business development director David Ainsworth says the project will be "tariff-free." For one, the cost of mooring the kites is far less than mooring wind turbines, since the kite system essentially floats. The kites fly up to 450 meters in a figure-eight pattern and pull a tether attached to a turbine to produce electricity. Two kites alternately rising and falling ensures continuous power.

A single 40-meter-wide kite generates two to three megawatts of electricity and a field of roughly 1,000 kites "would produce as much electricity as the planned Hinkley Point C nuclear power station if the wind blew constantly," according to Independent.

The Stranraer region is inundated with wind and Kite Power Solutions expects just 10 days a year when the system won't generate power. In these cases, the company will use a small fan to keep the kites afloat as they wait for more wind.

Kite Power Solutions already established a small kite-power system in England's Essex county, and there's a large research project in Italy that uses kites to generate energy.

https://windswept-and-interesting.co.uk/

Music: The Barbary Scott by Dhruva Aliman
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