KiweeTwo - next Kitewinder product

kiwee has already the automatic retrieval mechanism. Works with a servomotor. The Generator is use for reel in.
It also has a inclination sensor to detect low wind.
It also have an assisted reel out features. We control reel out speed.
So to do automatic launch, I just have to work on the kite, all the others things, we already do it on kiwee one

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Crosswind should be easy once you add electric control to the lifter kite

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4 posts were split to a new topic: Lever-arm launch

I would think the market at this size could be mostly for fun. Look how much people spend on RC airplanes or just kites - no “reason” or “use” other than just having fun. The fact of watching it charge something, like a phone, is part of the fun.

@dougselsam, yep might be so. Market will tell

At the moment kiwee one works with a 4 sqm pilot. Pilot exist up to 16 sqm, that means we can stay front wind up to next generation. Then from there we will see. Kiwee is rated 100W but we already record peak power up to 250 W. That mean kiwee two could probably go up to 1 kW. That is 24 kwh per day on 100 % duty. Almost 10000 kwh per year. That already is a lot for remote place.
Again, Kitewinder is not about utility scale for now, it is about permanent generation and high winds harnessing.
Tech development has always been from simple to complex thing, that is what we do.
About crosswind, I have never seen any power curve on any crosswind project, I will stick with @dougselsam on that : projects shall show us metrics rather than equations.
Last but not least, we focus on power transmission, what we do front wind could also be done crosswind. Maybe at some points a partnership could be possible with another team. Rope drive combined with makani style engine could make a great mix… Maybe.

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32 posts were split to a new topic: Ideas for scaling up AWES based on a tethered airborne rotor driving a rope drive

@gordon_sp , I replied to you here. Kiwee is already a commercial product. you can buy one in a couple of minutes on our website. So as said in another topic, kiwee as devellop some others services that made us independent from our sells of kiwee one. Don’t think that we don’t focus on kiwee two because that is precisely what we are doing. Being financially independent guarantee that you could still buy a kiwee one in 2 or 3 years. you wil also get technical support when needed as well as spare parts. It also guarantee us to still be there in the comings years to be able to develop kiwee two. At the moment kiwee One is not a commercial sucess, far from that. We need time to try everything to market and sell kiwee as best as possible. Then by the time I make sure there is a market for such product, we will move forward to kiwee 2 . Do you remember my post on the “No market hypothesis” ? We are the first one on that market with such product, so we had the time to. test the market, and the product does not sell itself. Let me ask you a simple question: Why did you not buy one to try the tech ? I find it hyghly dispointing that no other company ( big or small ) call us just to have our feedback on market. As for kiwee One, I don’t have the guarantee that there is an existing market for kiwee 2. Kitekraft will eventually release it’s product on 2024. Fair enough, let’s see what they do with that product, I’m curious.

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The market that I am considering is rural homes and small businesses who would like to get off the grid or save power costs. The only present options are a wind turbine or solar cells. Both these systems are fully automated. If we want to compete with them we need an automated system as well. We have all the advantages - lower cost, more consistent power, easy maintenance, portability etc. but if we don’t have full automation we are doomed.
I have suggested various methods of autonomously launching and landing and I am sure that there are many others.
I would like to suggest two criteria which control the system.

  1. Decision to launch is determined by the wind velocity and direction.
  2. Decision to land is determined by the tether (cable drive) tension. If tension is too high we must land to prevent damage to the system, if it is too low the cable drive can malfunction and the lifter kite cannot support the turbine(s).

I don’t think AWES have all the advantages, I will be much more shaded in my opinion.
About cost first, for small wind turbine, AWES is more costly than a traditionnal wind turbine.
About maintenance : there is a low probability that an immature technology has a lower maintenance cost than a well known and mature technology. not counting the fact that AWES has more moving parts than traditionnal Wind turbine.
Portability : agree with you, we are much more portable, that is a key difference
In my opinions you forget the main feature of AWES : land use. In most case AWES can’t be deploy because of land use.For the market you described for example: rural homes and small business. Just put a tree somewhere in the equation and your customer is gone.
Full automation is probably a key feature for large power production but only if you have a place to deploy your device. If you don’t, even with a fully automated devices, you will go nowhere.

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If he were the only one to forget this concern… And this is one of the major points making HAWT devices that AWES cannot (or very hardly) compete with in utility-scale, unless they can evolve towards gigantism (well beyond what HAWT could achieve) in order to maximize the power to space use ratio.

Otherwise some niche markets can occur by exploiting their mobility, up to a drone that would search for good locations and deploy automatically to store energy in a battery or even recharge the car battery. Perhaps significant individual uses could then arise.

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Some said AWE was all about replacing hardware with software. Well they have had 14 years to write the software. Now people are stepping back to take “the view from 30,000 feet”, and saying there is no place to run an AWE system, etc.
So nobody knew wind energy requires space until now?
I still maintain that for AWE to catch on in any meaningful way, someone will have to demonstrate a useful configuration that does something for someone, generating useful amounts of power, in some useful way, rather than just generating more excuses.

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Kiwee meets the conditions you describe. It will be difficult to do better in this range unless you have a fully automated drone system, even in the search for sites.

AWE requires far more space. Imagine that there are MW-scale AWES (SkySails later?) like some installed wind turbines, and these AWES would work not too badly. Now replace HAWT with these hypothetical AWES. I bet it would be a miracle if you managed to replace a tenth of them.

Hi Pierre:
Well, my point is we’re just noticing this now? After 14 years of hype? So why did we ever start pursuing AWE? I am not arguing your point, that it would appear, without a working AWE system to use as an example, that it would be difficult to match a regular windfarm as far as density. But so far AWE targets remote islands, ships, offshore, single installations, shipping-container systems for “disaster-relief”, etc. AWE arguments seem to want to pick and choose whether they compare against standard wind turbines, depending on which discussion they are in. If we are talking about windfarms, you (as an example) point out how we don’t know how we could pack the same density of AWE systems into a windfarm space. But then people developing the typical shipping-container AWE systems will cite remote islands where it is expensive to import diesel fuel to run a generator, never mentioning they are still in competition with regular wind turbines, since a regular wind turbine is also an option for a remote island. Meanwhile, if there were an AWE system that could compete with a regular wind turbine, THEN remote islands, single residences and farms, etc., WOULD be a place where you could run an AWE system without entanglement with neighboring systems. So, to me, worrying about how close you could pack AWE systems is relevant, but a future problem. Cart before the horse. First you need an AWE system that someone would WANT to pack together in a windfarm. As it is now, there is no such problem. And like the three blind me trying to describe an elephant, it is hard to say how we would pack many AWE systems together if we don’t know what they would look like.

Yeah and they are selling systems and nobody is worried about how to pack them into a windfarm.

I will be attended IFA Berlin from september 2 to 6. So If anyone wants to come along, it will be a great pleasure.
I will showcase Kiwee and also our Molding injection process

IFA Berlin main page

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POIDS 10 kg
DIMENSIONS 100 × 40 × 40 cm
POWER OUTPUT 100 Watts @ 28 km/h , up to 400 Watts @ 50 km/h
FLIGHT ALTITUDE Between 30 and 60 meters, depending wind speed
Wind speed range : starting at 20 km/h up to 60 km/h continuous.
Gust up to 120 km/h
INTERNAL BATTERY Li-ion, 10S, 40 V, 2200 mAh, 80 Wh
CONNECTORS – Cigar lighter receptacle 12 / 24 V, 100 W Max
– 2 x USB socket 5V
– Terminal block 12/ 24 V, 100 W Max
PROPELLER DIAMETER 1.05 m

400 W at 50 km/h (about 14 m/s). What an achievement! Indeed, progress has been made to be able to produce more with more wind, or I missed something.

that 's it @pierre. more with more wind ! Your numbers are about right, It was done at around 50km/h constant wind. At start kiwee was planned to be 50W. then we discovered it could do more. We design it to hold 120 km/h winds. It ended up on molene Island last year to make some records at 400W generated power. We were forced to lower production at that moment because power output capability and battery charge current where limiting our power production. Also I think generator was a bit overheating :wink:

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