In Denmark wind power was an important part of a decentralized electrification in the first quarter of the 20th century, partly because of Poul la Cour from his first practical development in 1891 at Askov. By 1908 there were 72 wind-driven electric generators from 5 kW to 25 kW.
The Bilau quote does sound a lot like people naysaying after Makani and now possibly Ampyx collapse? Bilau way I believe talking about a 5 MW plan, that indeed didnt work. But it did turn out, over time, that «impossible» was possible
AWE’s path to the large-scale market faces two pitfalls: starting too big and failing; starting small and thinking that growth will lead to effective solutions.
These two pitfalls have one thing in common: we don’t know much about the quality of the design: in the first case we can fail without having exploited the potential, or without taking into account other design parameters; in the second case there is nothing to say that a design that works more or less well on a small scale will not lead to a dead end, forcing us to start again from scratch.
AWE was originally designed to exploit winds at altitudes unattainable for HAWTs. As the space used is considerable, the wind areas swept should also be considerable. Although there may be niche markets, this is a kind of challenge similar to the conquest of space, where many things had to be tested at scale.
The two ends (small-scale and utility-scale) in AWE could support each other. When doing small, one should have the big in mind. And when you think big, you should be able to do it small. This is why one could envisage a path to market that is like a tornado (onshore) or a waterspout (offshore), with the two ends coming together.
The developer of AWE must strike a balance between building the biggest plant that is affordable and is most similar to 1:1 scale. Then that must be combined with a solid understanding of AWE scaling.
Also in addition to cost is how big you are able to build. Building large structures that fly is well known in general, but the team must digest this knowledge also. This would normally happen over time.
Ideally, I believe you should not focus too much on getting to the market. Just making it work at all is the first problem that must be solved. You want to be in a position where if you succeed in making power, you will find money to make a commercial build. If the prototype is also the commercial build, you are in for an extremely difficult task.
I say this because there seems to be many projects but few or none so far that provides a believeable performance as a power source. Yet still people like to talk about crashing in houses, scaling huge, which market to establish first, tangling lines etc. This I think would only be important at this point if an investor had a special interest in such topics and required to se a “beliveable story”.
This is ideal of course. In real life the chances that present themselves are not aligned to this, and then one must consider if you should still try, or give it a pass.
I also share tallakt feeling. That is a fair analysis. I agree on most of all except for the part when you @PierreB says when you do small you have to think big and contrary. I think you can focus on one, the other or both, it’s up to want you want to do and what your tech could possibly be scale to. @tallakt , that is also a nice analysis about confrontation between what you want to do, what you can do and also the timeframe of all that.
For kitewinder for example, it is still a bit hard to say for me but I am in the process of digesting it : kiwee is a technical sucess but a commercial failure.
That might be due to size, maybe it is a bit too small . hard to say. What is so disapointing is that during our tests in Molene island last year, it perform so well that we heated up the tents .We also put the traditionnal wind turbine on mast on the ground after 6 hours because of the noise and ineffectiveness.
Thing is, as tallakt pointed it out, that is not the first product we were willing to devellop but rather the only one we could possibly afford to…
I was making a general outline for possible newcomers to come in AWE. Of course, necessity is also the law. That said, at least as far as rotating devices are concerned, Kiwee would also be a good candidate for scaling up, if only because of the rope-drive system, not to mention the high power coefficient.
Compared to other AWES, Kiwee is also a commercial success.
One of the difficulties may be that the customer cannot bear the research costs alone, which are reflected in the purchase price. We have a similar problem somewhere with hot-air balloons: customers seek to get large deductions by having companies sponsor the balloon and put their logo on it.
Could something similar be done with Kiwee, for example by building a partnership with Engie (already interested in AWE and making calls for projects, see below) as sponsor, putting its logo on the kite? But surely you know all this…
Besides that, for a specialization in camping equipment, maybe we could save 1 or 2 kg on the generator thanks to the high speed of the rope-drive transmission, even if it is at the cost of a shorter duration for a higher rpm. 3 kg instead of 5 kg in the backpack is not nothing.
There is a concept in product development that people won’t know they “need” something until someone creates that something that they need. Example: smartphones: nobody knew they needed one until they became available. Turns out writing apps is easier than creating an AWE system, because kids can sit there in an easy chair writing software, but would have to get out of that chair to develop an AWE system. And of course people in wind energy know it is a challenging field of endeavor. Newbies don’t even know that, they just think wind turbine designers must be stupid. Meanwhile, someone has to deliver reliable performance and handle mundane issues like leading edge erosion and overspeed protection. We can try to make it as complicated as we want, but if there is a cheaper or better way to make energy, people will want it. If the last 12 years+ of big talk about how easy it will be to dominate the wind energy market, starting in the stratosphere and sinking toward ground level ever since, has been based on anything factual at all, then someone needs to follow through and demonstrate a compelling solution.
Not at all. The R&D cost has been supported by ADEME, other fundings and kitewinder. Kiwee is made of 135 pieces ( don’t remember exactly ) . What you pay is just parts, labour and some marignal margin.
Yes, That is what we are trying to do on the other product we presented. The one for military purpose. For engie, I don’t see any Call for projects in your link
Not it can’t. One side effect on an energy product cost is that the smaller you get the more complicated it became to have a good price / energy production ratio . Plus the solution you describe means running faster → re dev on all the upper part. changing the generator to a higher kV one… No way. to complicated and we won’t gain more than a couple of hundred grams
Just a reflection on the title of this topic: Seems like a weak excuse to me. How about a “no product” hypothesis? The market for electricity is well-established, not in doubt, and it was supposed to be relatively straightforward for kites to conquer the wind energy space. The only question is the ability to address that well-established market. I guess another choice for the armchair innovators out there on their screens is to pretend, after all these years, that the blame can somehow be magically shifted to “the market” or just to say “There is no market.” The market is still there, waiting for AWE people to do what they said they could do. This is getting silly, in my opinion.
Kiwee remains a technical success and is on the market. It is intended for nomadic use, camping, hiking, boating…
The question is where? I live in the countryside myself, and can’t find many places for kite flying: private properties including agricultural land, forests…
In general, without even mentioning the cities, groves, crowded beaches, too steep mountains, do not allow the frequent use of the kite, and even less for the production of electricity.
What’s left? Open terrain such as on some coasts and islands, or moors in medium mountains. Thus trekkers would be sure to find a clear location at each stage.
It could therefore be useful to identify the places where such a product could flourish, as is done for other activities (diving, mountain…).
The localization problem is similar for large AWES (assuming they are ready), adding less mobility and vastly increased space consumption, which only the prospect of mass production could offset.
You are far from reality Doug. There is many cool things that have been developed over times in all domains. Many of those where working well but that does not makes sells. The number one startup failure cause is: lack of customers. It also applies to AWES. Thinking you just have to develop something that works and it will sell itself is a common techno push idea. The market is not waiting for AWE at all. Classical wind turbine are doing fine. As long as AWE are not competitive, it will remains anonymous. And if it remains anonymous it might be because AWES is maybe not as great as it can seems at first sight. That last sentence is my 10 years feedback opinion. It is cool but too restrictive in term of space where you can set up the device.
What I say apply to all. You with your prototype that you never push further. Me and my company that never really sell Kiwee and all others developer that never really reach the market. So there is no excuses, it is just the way it is. It seems there is no market for AWE. It is a cool idea on the paper. It might be hard to accept but I guess we have to live with that and move away. That is what you did with superturbine ( and I think you were right to do so ). My company is also pivoting on something different. Been there done that…
I am sorry to hear that you seem to be moving on from AWE. It should be clear that AWE is not easy to sell, for some obvious reasons you say like space requirements, but also many more.
I would still like to point out that failure does not prove something is not a good idea. I bet many people failed in solar so far in history, even though that seems to be prevailing these days. Also it does not mean you did a poor job or had poor judgement. For sure being smart can dramatically increase the odds of succeeding. But then there is timing, funding, access to competence, access to testing sites, access to customers, ability to sell a product and so on. It is and will be very hard. For this reason AWE would only attract the most naive and stubborn crowd at this point.
Still, those naive and stubborn people may be on to something in my opinion.
I didn’t move from AWES tallakt. AWES made me move by itself as there is no commercial perpsective at all at the moment. We can’t just sit there and wait for something to eventually happen. We tried everything commercially speaking and none as worked so far…
And after pivoting to something other than AWE, you could still face an unexpected influx of orders of Kiwees, with all the technology and production facilities which remain and also, more importantly, a device that works well.
If other small and large effective AWE designs appeared, this would perhaps create a synergy.
We have seen films that were commercial flops and then turned out to be cult films, classics a few years later. Not everything can be explained. There are imponderables.
Sure we have that possibility. Future will tell. Let makes myself clear, I will be more than happy if somebody suceed commercially speaking. If that happen, it will gives better chances for the others.
The no product hypothesis is at play. I was there at the very beginning, listening to all the sweeping promises of “the great visionaries”.
I openly stated they had NO IDEA of the brutal requirements for wind energy, but they kept on: “We like kitesurfing! Wheeeee!”
The reason there is no market, is there is no product. What do you expect, people to buy some useless feel-good demo? For no particular reason? Most of the promotional material you’ve seen is some combination of wishful thinking and outright deception.
By the way, I think you guys at Kitewinder have done a great job, with what look to be good blades, a reasonable design, and a product that works. I might be interested in your blades, if you want to get ahold of me, my email is My first name @ my last name dot com.
Doug Selsam
You are definitely a funny bird