If there is a market possibility for this, it is not sure (if not likely) that the chosen system could be an element of future “swarms of yoyo kites powering a single, giant, generator”.
In fact by putting off some metrics in order to favor a definite niche, it looks like you exchange metrics against other metrics of which the requirement of expanding the initially chosen AWES.
That implies the chosen method for a niche is a yoyo kite. But the only (niche) marketed AWES is Kiwee-one and it is not a yoyo kite. After all swarms of Kiwee-several are perhaps possible…
I think the issue of land use and power density is very much a political one.
In the UK there are vast tracts of unused land, owned remotely, only used for hunting, with the moorland regularly burnt to improve the shooting, and a ban on developing onshore wind tech…
Plant trees there. Grow kites too. Massive win win for humanity.
You could even have wee vegetarian targets below the kites if these toffee nosed twats still need to pop a shotgun at something.
It doesn’t need to be. The initial product only needs to be profitable in its niche so the company can stay in business and fund further R&D. Future designs can start with a blank canvas (with lessons learned from earlier products).
Yes. With current understanding that is my choice. Free of other constraints I would choose a yoyo system because it scales best, find a niche where it can compete, and continually keep improving it until it displaces the competition everywhere. That’s how you do disruptive innovation.
If the product keeps improving to be able to compete in its chosen niche and eventually in more niches and outsides of niches, sure.
“the future of AWE is swarms of yoyo kites powering a single, giant, generator.”
Funny, but this reminded me of a guy from a few years ago, who had a similar idea. He called it the Kite Carousel. It was never built, in any form, or scale.
He said (the Carousel) : “LCOE could be the lowest since oil’s golden age …”
Perhaps, knowing what isn’t disruptive technology, is as important as knowing what is. We are still waiting for the AWE Utility Scale disruptive solution.
Meanwhile, smaller scale products can be developed and targeted at specific markets, where there is a benefit to be had. Many AWE Companies are doing this, like KiteWinder and Enerkite. Some are not, Makani (FlyGen) and Ampyx (YoYo) are offshore Utility Scale products, that largely represent AWE’s face to the world.
I am using the precise definition of “disruptive innovation” from the Wikipedia article. The guy with the carousel wanted to start with the end result of years of innovation, the carousel. You need to start with the simplest precursor to that, that still can compete in a niche. I think that is a yoyo system.
Then I consider it a variation of a yoyo system and it should scale better than flygen or torque transfer. My “scale best” wasn’t the only reason I would choose a yoyo system though. That was just a quick comment. If I apply an Occam’s razor to AWE, a yoyo system would be my answer. Once you get that working you can think about expanding its capabilities and doing interesting stuff, like finding ways to add more kites to a single tether and adding more tethers to a single generator.
That presupposes flygen or torque transfer. I don’t think those things scale as well as just a tether pulling on a generator on the ground.
I think the final winner in the AWE arms race will be a simplest possible design, much like the current windmills are really simple with just three blades and a tower. But they are super refined and advanced once you take all the details into account. The problem will be finding the simplest platform on which to build AWE.
Right now it seems the really simple options with just one kite (yoyo and flygen) are not really that simple. This is IMHO why progress is not faster.
The other contenders that might fit the bill are rotating networks.
I also believe multiwing yoyo has potential. But first one would have to crack single wing yoyo (or be really excellent in execution and skip a few generations).
Multiwing yoyo will be the minimum number of wings until adding more wings does not add big benefits. The maximum number of wings I can see right now is six.
Rotating rigs are a bit different, as simple smaller kites may be easier to handle and offer added stability
I can only repeat myself here: AWE is wide open and any lucky/smart (probably both are necessary) person or group could walk away with the grand prize…
Sure, that’s a possibly useful metric. Like I keep saying, for the first iteration of a product you should try to find a niche where it doesn’t matter if the product doesn’t meet a specific chosen metric so you have the time and money to improve upon it so that over time it does.
I cant go into the details too much due to my employment at Kitemill. But I can say as much as having two sets of three kites counterrotating would allow you to have control of rotation/torque, and three kites in a set are the minimum number to form a fixed geometry.
You could add more layers (3, 4, 5, …) or more kites in a layer (3, 4, 5, 6, …) but I dont see much difference in basic physics when doing so. This leads me to having a hunch that 6 wings/kites is the maximum we’ll see for yoyo systems (Kitemill, Ampyx, Kiteswarms etc style)
Also I believe that configurations of 1, 2, 3, 2+2 or 3+3 could be optimum overall
AWE should be superior in larger scale, by utilizing higher altitude wind and using less materials (therefore in theory becoming cheaper long term).
For niche markets, some benefits could be moveability or perhaps even just being fun. But energy is a really competitive market. It could be very difficult to compete with solar panels, battery packs, diesel generators, windmills etc.
For Tesla to build an electric car they opted for a niche market with the Roadster. But they still had to perform a small moon landing in order to make that car. Delivering just a wheel or a small RC car would not have let them enter the market.
For AWE, perhaps we need to scale quite big in order to be competitive in a free market, in a niche. Perhaps we need a small moon landing sponsored by wealthy forward looking investors? AWE has in theory been known since before the 70s but still have not been realized at large scale.
The first niche (sorry Kitewinder) could be delivering slightly expensive electrical power in low winds, or allowing someone to build a plant where wind resources close to ground are too poor, or someone who wants a minimal impact on nature…
I am not sure if something built in a garage will ever make a big impact
It is OK tallak, I am not upset. Don’t know for who is the ‘made in the garage’ stand for?
I am pretty more OK with windy skies approach.
Innovation is about being better in one way, wanting to do a lower LCOE straight away seems impossible at Start.
And you also have to consider the time taken for versioning. That is I think what killed makani. If it takes you 2 years to do a prototype then you will never achieved. For kiwee, we had a 2 week session versioning that had last for 2 years. That is around 50 versions… Of something small that does not cost that much. Imagine if the prototype is worth a million? Impossible… Awes has to forget about early dreams of extreme cheap LCOE and focus on market entry. Then later, with time and a first reached market, we could talk about LCOE, high altitude winds, permanent generation and so on. Even thinking AWES will have a huge impact seems to me to be unrealistic. At start that won’t happen. I also had to accept that, that was hard!