Metrics or equations? Power curves or simulations?

[Rodread]

There’s a power curve at the end of this prospectus document from kitepower

Crowdfunding Kitepower

They’re crowd funding
Have you got €10 for this venture?

[PierreB]

@Rodread

Have you got €10 for this venture?

Perhaps only for a valid power curve , unlike the operation schema mentioning likely an estimate of the power:

Products - Kitepower

[PierreB]

@dougselsam

I saw this in the article:
“The current model, Falcon, features a kite measuring four by fifteen meters and is capable of generating 100kW per year, enough to power 150 households. The system is too expensive”…
There go the “journalists” again:

1. There is no such thing as “kW per year”. They always have to add “per year” - I guess they didn’t go to college - er um I mean high school.
2. No 150 kW will NOT power 150 homes - unless everyone is on vacation and nobody is home. More like 15 homes. But don’t they all have to say “power X hundred homes in Location Y by Date Z”?

Here the journalist takes the information from the Falcon page already linked above: 100 kW, 150 households supplied. On the other hand the website provides also the value of 450 MWh (not the incorrect “100 kW per year”), which allows a high capacity factor to be expected.

But useful metrics should lead to real power curves, not only the manufacturer’s information.

[Rodread]

@dougselsam if a small household is careful 1kW is sufficient in most of the world. North America hmmm not so much because you wouldn’t be able to leave the bbq cooking, while heating the pool and shampooing the car… Whatever it is you do with all that energy

[dougselsam]

Hello Roddy:
If your location were powered by wind energy, like our facility, you would know better than to say that.

1. There is a huge difference between a wind energy system with a rated power of 1 kW, and 1 kW of continuous power. No wind energy system achieves a 100% capacity factor.You have to multiply the rated output by the capacity factor of, say, 0.3, to get the actual average output, which, for a 1 kW wind turbine, should be about 300 Watts. (Then again, how many people would put a 1000-Watt turbine on a high enough tower to get a 30% capacity factor? Also, almost no house is located in a good wind resource.)
2. It is well-known here in the U.S. that you need a 10 kW system, whether solar or wind (assuming you have a REALLY GOOD wind resource) you will have the equivalent of 2-3 kW continuous power from a 10 kW system.
3. Yes I am somewhat aware that the smaller houses in Europe use less power than homes in the U.S., but if you think any will be self-sufficient with all power provided by a 1 kW wind turbine, you are dreaming. And you are always working, you need vehicles large enough to carry a lot of materials, lumber, paint, tools, lawnmowers, chainsaws, weedwhackers, fuel, oil, people, etc. Real living requires real energy.
4. Average power used by houses around the world would include many mud huts and minimal shelter in undeveloped areas, often with no heating or cooling systems, cooking with dung as fuel, etc. It makes no sense to include such minimalist living conditions in a discussion of powering developed areas. (not that I don’t appreciate minimalist lifestyles, but if you want to get a lot of stuff done in the modern world, you are going to need energy.)
5. I’ve noticed Scottish clean energy people seem jealous of our standard of living here. To me, it feels bare bones. I’m not living high on the hog. I bust my ass for very little reward. All I can say is thank heavens for LED light bulbs. This place has something like over 70 light bulbs of outdoor lighting. Many of the light fixtures have 4 bulbs. I can barely manage to turn all seven switches on and off every day - I usually miss at least one, due to getting sidetracked. I had quite an electric bill when our second Bergey 10 kW wind turbine failed, until I replaced it with Bergey Turbine #3. That took a large crane, many skilled workers driving over 100 miles, with trucks full of tools, and used a lot of energy. Nice to know the latest turbine is usually putting out a few kW. Almost always spinning. Brings my bill down to near zero most years, and once every few years we go over our use and they send me a small check, which is a tiny sum compared to the cost of even just maintaining the wind energy systems.

[Rodread]

I think with benefit of the doubt… As I only mentioned consumption…
Yeah fair points. Hold my hand up. Spot on @dougselsam The article is waaay over claiming on houses supplied equivalent, without considering capacity factor

[dougselsam]

I was just outside in about a 30 mph wind (hard to walk in) when suddenly it hit me:
My friend who was the head of Anemometry for GE Wind lives with his wife in a small cabin in a remote location on a hill near the GE windfarm, and their small cabin WAS powered by a 700 Watt wind turbine and batteries when I met him. Heating was from a wood-burning stove. They ran everything else off that 700-Watt turbine and batteries. They had to be extremely careful using minimal lighting, small appliances, teeny TV, little laptop computer, etc. Their lifestyle was so spartan it was really almost like camping. Most people would never put up with it. At some point he started adding solar panels. About ten years ago he told me “Doug, wind sucks, solar is the way to go”. The wind turbine wore out. He gave me his tower for one of my test sites. These days he has all the (solar) power he needs. He buys big lots of solar panels at auctions and sells them off in small batches. He has all the power he could ever use, no more skimping, just lots of solar.