The lifetime of a paraglider is about 500 hours, so 20 days in full AWE operation. With more robust fabrics like for sails, the lifetime can reach 2000, perhaps 3000 hours in full operation, so 300 days. Don’t forget that crosswind power kites are subject to maximum stress due to a relatively high apparent wind, so very high forces/m², and the variations of forces during eight or large loop figures are a factor of deterioration. A crosswind kite is not cheap, and the cost in 20 years operation can be far higher than the cost of blades for current ground-based wind turbines. It is a reason why companies go to rigid wings.
The relatively low lifetime of fabrics or even high-tech laminated films is due to the lack of unity of the material: the woven threads of fabrics undergo more UV and strengths, and the layers of laminated films tend to separate quickly.
Compared to uniform material like XF-film with a lifetime higher by an order of magnitude: I tested it outdoors for more than three years, while a riptstop piece was out after some months. In the other hand the dimensional stability of XF-film or similar is too low for an efficient crosswind kite, but not for an almost static drag-kite-reeling with L/D ratio being 1. And the low efficiency can be compensated with low spacing as collisions are without serious effect. Then a low efficiency allows a less precise control as the risks are lesser.
The safety of several tons rigid wings going fast with their km tether going fast also (being able to work as a giant and mobile guillotine) is a question, knowing it is dependent of the reliability of the automated control. As the control fails, some possibilities are collisions in high speed, high kinetic energy, high mess (tethers). Huge spacing (added to huge space due to the non maximization of the swept area) is the passive mean to overcome the lack of safety. But huge spacing destroys the efficiency of each unity.
Resarchers focuse on the efficiency of a wing by its area in crosswind mode, neglecting the efficiency within a space used, or minimizing it by supposing the wind force and direction are the same within a kite-farm. In these conditions, in spite of marginal improvements on the control, on automated take-off and so on, they cannot compete with current wind turbines. These points I evoke explain that we don’t see and will unlikely see them on the market.
The master concern is the management of the space. And the Tarp-Kite configuration seems to gather cheap and high lifetime material, and a possibility for a better maximization of the space.
IMHO AWES are a mix of low (hot-air balloon and even kite styles) and high technologies (Artificial Intelligence).
The management of the space is not a concern among others like take-off, variants of control, biplane-monoplane, flygen-groudgen and so on.
The management of the space is THE AWE concern.