I’d like to create a thread to discuss planning talks for AWEC 2024. From the email:
Submission deadline: 16 October 2023
…
The conference is intended as a reference for companies, politicians, researchers, scientists, investors, professionals and students interested or active in the innovative field of Airborne Wind Energy. Submitted abstracts will be selected and arranged so that the conference will provide a consistent compilation of existing prototypes and models, fundamental theories, current research and development activities, and economic, investment and regulatory aspects. Besides the R&D and technical sessions, it is of special interest to have an investment & finance session. All investors (VC, family offices, Corporate Ventures, private investors etc.) are welcome to contribute their interest, expectation or existing experience about AWE financing to the conference. The topics of the conference will include but are not limited to:
Practical experiences and prototypes
High altitude wind resource
Wind measurement and weather conditions
Political issues and requirements
Ground-generation pumping concepts
Airborne-generation concepts
Ground-generation rotary concepts
Performance characterisation
Flight stability, dynamic models and control
Structural and aerodynamic analysis
Materials
Kite and tether design and manufacture
Generators and electrical subsystems
Reliability and safety assessment
Kite networks
New AWE concepts
System topologies
Economic potential
Social acceptance
Ecological impacts and footprint
Sustainability & Climate change
Financing strategies
Regulations and insurance
Investors perspective.
Experiences from test, demonstration and commercial operation
AWE siting, potential and site development
Supply Chain
Social acceptance and community engagement
Environmental impacts and carbon footprint, life-cycle analyses
Maybe this one is interesting to me. Can you make a quick to make and cheap kiteplane so you can do testing 24/7 and not worry too much when you crash, and do you have a path to producing 10 a week if you get an order or when you see a path to becoming self-sufficient from selling the electricity produced. I have an unsupported feeling that the cost of the kiteplanes, excluding the components you bolt to it, could come down an order of magnitude.
I haven’t looked into it much, but as far as I am aware only you did some modeling of torque transfer over a tensile shaft, and a student did some testing on Rod’s system. That seems to me early stage research that could be improved upon.
In few words it is about using gliders in dynamic soaring for the revitalization of the wake, by using the wake and the clearer wind layer above. The evaluations give hope for a substantial gain.
This may be the most interesting thing I’ve seen in airborne wind power (AWE) in a long time. If only one topic would be debated in the next AWES 2024, I would chose this one.
This could make the link between traditional wind energy (the one that produces) and AWE.
The PDF is available upon request.
This opens a field. Studies could follow on the safety of gliders near wind turbine blades.
If such a concept is workable (it looks to be), that could lead to a significant energy generation (by wake revitalization) without the requirement of tethers, generators, motors, land use…
This would be a new direction for AWE: capturing the clear layers of wind above the wind turbines for the benefit of them, by revitalizing the wake.
Political lobbying ties into all of this. So perhaps a talk about how that is going and how it can be expanded. You’d want the ability for citizens and small businesses to deploy a system and a straightforward way to apply for a permit, you’d want to lower the charge to supply energy back to the grid, and so on.
Thanks to everyone here in this thread who has submitted abstracts and/or has peer-reviewed abstracts or contributed in some other way. The peer review process of the AWEC 2024 is still ongoing and we plan to inform authors by 11 December 2023.
We have now added the information about the invited speakers, the venue, and the side events to the conference website. For example, on 23 April 2024, 14:00, there will be progress meetings of the IEA Wind Task 48 work packages. Please join if you are involved or if you are interested to learn what we do in this task.
Jochem De Schutter
Moritz Diehl
Johan Meyers