It seems that the Kitewinder company is experiencing difficulties. However, Kitewinder has managed to launch the very ingenious AWES named “Kiwee One”, as well as a fine
hydrogenerator.
My opinion: the current AWE leaders could generate a little less scientific publications which require research funding and which are hundreds, and a little more development of prototypes like Kiwee.
I tried to combine a Torus surrounding a rope-drive wind turbine but the rope-drive transmission seems to require an axial support: the torus cannot have a bridle in order to hold correctly it, preventing it from touching the turbine via the mast. Of course, tests would confirm or infirm it. If the problem is real, I think the wind turbine (Kiwee in different scales) could be used alone like the original, with a lifting kite, or rather a spherical balloon or a streamlined kite balloon or Magnus or Sharp balloons, inflated with hydrogen protected by a layer of nitrogen and/or carbon dioxide.