AWES classification

Well Pierre, you seem to have forgotten your usual skepticism. It appears to me that the numerical figure you are citing is a generic, hypothetical number from a sales brochure that represents a (stretch-) goal, not an actual reported result. Please correct me if I got something wrong. Just trying to understand. As far as I know, the last we heard about that kite was that it had been “shipped to Asia” (?). I’ve searched for any followup information, several times since then, and never found a single mention of any further activity involving this mystery supposed wind energy system. Not one word. Have you not noticed the pattern yet? All AWE “news” can only be in the future-tense. Any followup to the story is then verboten, once the impressive-sounding future news has been released. You are then expected to forget everything you have heard, and wipe your mind clean, in preparation to eagerly accept the next “future news” story. Think “Altaeros”.

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And so you have, for years now.

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Right, but it is from their website:

And also I already asked some questions:

Here’s the most updated information I could find - AWE “news-of-the-future” - always stated in future-tense:
December 10, 2020

Kite Power For Mauritius

Wind power 2.0: Revolutionary airborne wind energy system to provide green power to the Republic of Mauritius

A new and innovative form of wind power will soon deliver green electricity to the Republic of Mauritius. Mauritian-based company IBL Energy Holdings Ltd. and German SkySails Power GmbH have agreed on the installation of an airborne wind energy system. Starting 2021, a large kite will lift off at the eastern coast of the island to generate electricity for the CEB grid from high-altitude winds.

Well… ?

By the way, I decided when this announcement was made one year ago, I would come back to revisit the topic in one year, pretty sure we would have heard no followup information or news of said system in actual use. A well-established pattern for “AWE”.

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Will likely be a worthwhile exercise in the AWES architectures WP5 to have (maybe revisit) an exploration of what are Essential and Non Essential requirements of an AWES
It’s a fundamental to research for design - To examine your options and potential solution space before choosing.
I can’t remember a research paper ever exploring this
E.g. maybe a list of
Essential-------------------------Non Essential
Operates in the air---------------Operates at high Altitude
Uses a kite-like-blade-----------Is a standard Kite
Uses one or more tethers------Uses a single tether

The selection and implementation of devices to fulfill these requirements, of course effects how a system performs
@jochem Weber presented an overview of
Realistic and effective AWE performance Assessment Criteria for successful technology development
at WESC2021 https://www.wesc2021.org/fileadmin/wesc2021/themes/10/BoA_-_Theme_10.pdf

Perhaps this classification could be modified by taking account of Proposed new terminology to align AWE with established wind energy.

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Here’s my take

Just classify by how the energy is being made. If you are on a moving vessel doesn’t really matter much. Also how to deploy [VTOL etc] is less interesting, or maybe make a separate classification diagram for that part.

classification.pdf (35.2 KB)

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Terms can be discussed. Apart this, Omnidea is in the same category as Guangdong, as drag type in the schema. I think both are yoyo systems. Perhaps reaching consistency with this schedule would be difficult.

I think @rschmehl classification is good and can be aligned with established wind power, because the already used terms like “lift” or “drag” or “downwind” are not used, and the specific terms of AWE (“crosswind”, “tether-aligned”…) are understandable.

The scientific publications should use the terms of this classification instead of confusing terms like “lift” or “drag” type.

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Hi Pierre
What I notice is that every decent windmill or wind turbine for the last 2000 years has been 100% crosswind. As I used to tell Santos, if someone has to actually SAY “crosswind” it tells you immediately they probably don’t know what they are doing.

Hi Doug,

Indeed both “crosswind” kites and blades of regular wind turbines work “crosswind”, even more for the last, although the blade sides close to the hub do not move much, unlike both sides of crosswind kites.

But crosswind kites are kites, while crosswind blades are blades. And not all kites are crosswind, since there are (in the AWE field) tethered-aligned kites.

I agree, @PierreB, that terms like “lift” or “drag” type need to be avoided.

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Classification Sheet Formats.pptx (165.3 KB)
This is the minimum set of data I’d recommend we use to classify AWES before we can start comparing models.

I’m quite certain the most common response to this form will be
Ooooh Pretty colours
The same response my Kite turbine designs used to get

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Imagine a similar chart for regular wind energy, showing the hundred inadvisable ways to attempt regular wind energy, and if you spent a long time scrutinizing it, you might be able to locate the one way that actually works out… :slight_smile:

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The last chart was basically a guide to evaluating Intrinsic Factors of AWES
We need to consider AWES in the wider world context.
The wider Extrinsic Factors will determine the product market fit of any particular AWES architecture.

Suggestions welcome for how these Extrinsic Factors should be classified
What sub categories / market drivers should go in each area.

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Hello Roddy:
I tried to look at the downloaded file in photo viewer, and could not read most of the text due to insufficient resolution - zooming in did not help much.
One thing I wondered is what you mean by “crosswind lift” and “crosswind drag”. Depends what day it is in AWE, I guess.
Also, SuperTurbine™ and variants are also crosswind lift devices, just more sensible utilizing the high-speed spin, versus the low-speed thrust (“pull”). Funny how hard it is to convince newbies that the best way to harness wind energy is spin. Well, you know, all those “really smart” people… Let’s see, how do we generate something like ~10% of our electricity on Earth at this point? Oh yeah, spin. Hmmm. Who would have thought. Hello? Knock knock. Anybody home in there?
Well, at least you can claim kite-reeling is “renewable” since you have to “renew” the entire apparatus every minute or so by dragging it back in, so it can be dragged back out again. What the heck ever happened to “laddermill”? I thought it was supposed to be a great idea? Beyond the fabrication skills of the thousands of smile-for-the-camera interns, and their fearless leaders, I guess… :slight_smile:

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Hi Doug, do you see “Laddermill” as a rotary AWES?

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Hi Pierre: Well that is an interesting question. Depends exactly what one means by “rotary”. Most every scheme that spins (rotates) a generator could be called “rotary”. Certainly laddermill as a concept targets steady-state motion in a closed loop. If that could be called “rotation”, then overall, I would have to say “yes”, and add that it includes built-in ratio gearing without necessarily having to add a gearbox. Not sure how an idea could go from a huge, highly-celebrated and publicized “breakthrough” to “forget about it”, without anyone ever having tried to build a single one, ever. Seems a little weird, doesn’t it? Also seems a little weird the fixation on naming categories and trying to fit every idea into those categories. Words are just words. Configurations are configurations. If someone could not speak, could they still build an AWE system, without using any words or categorizing it? Would categorizing it change what appears on a power meter? What’s the point?

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I made a pretty picture of the WP5 architecture intrinsic classification set I had

Probably useless

But it looks like a dandelion head so … that’s something at least
Classifications.pdf (77.6 KB)

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