Plans to provide 1k-1.5k houses with kite power.

If this becomes reality, it’s BIG.

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I would prefer a new about the current reality. A plan for the future is not more a new. There are too news about future plans in AWE and no reality since years.

Yeah I know… :smirk:
But @Kitepower are a bit more credible than some startup promising they will solve global energy demand by harnessing the jet stream and beaming internet everywhere. (Brainwhere) So I assume it’s a real possibilty.
What makes me sceptical is the fact that this is basically utility scale, competing with grid prices, which I don’t see possible without subsidies.
They haven’t even got automatic launch and landing figured out yet.
Could just be a test site for duration testing which is grid connected.

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True, and as @Kitepower is a promising statup with leading experts, a significant new should be something like “we supplied electricity for n houses last year”.

The automatic launch is a concern, but they can solve it.
In the other hand large figure-eight per kite could lead to a large space use by a kite-farm when the utility-scale production is a purpose.

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In “AWE”, most “news” is in the future.
Let us know if that ever changes.
My prediction: this will not happen. (yawn…)
Seems like the more expensive the project, the more false statements of future progress they feel obligated to make. I’m much more impressed with some of the recent actual progress of the smaller recent projects that are able to get something going on a small budget.

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One more thought: Think of a “shell game” scam, where your eyes are fooled by trying to follow where the bean went, as the trickster keeps things moving so fast you have trouble following the action. This has been an ongoing theme in wannabe wind energy. The “innovators” start out declaring how their new technology “will” outperform standard wind turbines. But then there is a “diversion” of your attention: Instead of feeding the existing hungry grid, they pretend that the real problem was finding a place to put all that power! As though the only thing holding them back has been someone to use their electricity. So they cite future “projects” that have some reason why they can’t feed the grid now, only later. A convenient “built-in delay”. It may be that they chose a test site where they are not allowed to test most of the year, like KPS, or maybe they target a housing development that has not been built yet, so how can we expect any grid-feed anytime soon? They have to build the houses first, right? There are no existing houses or cities to power, right? Sure. Nice diversion strategy, but it’s an old tactic that is worn out. Feeding the grid is always available. The key is to have something that CAN power thousands of homes, or even just one home, not just talking about it.

Utility-scale AWE is very difficult. Announcing future plans is only a mean to assert its existence. But now it is quite counterproductive.

From what I’ve seen in wannabe-wind energy, the most common shell-game “diversion” is specifically to substitute a sexy-sounding “location” for technical performance metrics. The idea was, if the proposed “location” were sufficiently impressive, people would forget about “technical readiness”, since the location alone is enough to craft a compelling story around, at which point the attention-span of most readers would be exceeded to analyze the technology under consideration. Back after 911, the impending “new” world trade center was announced to include built-in wind turbines. With some experience and knowledge of the inevitable problems with building-mounted wind turbines (vibration, noise), wind energy expert Paul Gipe and I both declared “No they won’t.” But the story had legs, due to the compelling nature of the “location”. Look at Aerovironment’s roof-mounted turbines at Logan Airport. I recall being contacted by Aerovironment in their search for blades. Sexy location then, today a discontinued product. Altaeros ready to power remote Alaska - sexy location hype substituting for a well-engineered wind energy system. Project abandoned. New “sexy location” story: Oman. Results? Never heard of any. Makani powering Hawaii years ago - sexy location, nice story, but it never happened. KPS “new test facility” in Scotland. Lots of press based on a sexy-sounding new location. No followup press coverage of any actual grid feed activity so far, that I’ve heard of anyway. Even AWE itself falls into this pattern. “Sexy new location”: the sky itself. Makes a great story. Hopefully the technology catches up with the hype!