How big a Kite Gen power plant is?

How much energy a Kite Gen power plant produces?

What is the cost of the energy produced by a Kite Gen power plant?

What is the troposphere?

How wind power is calculated?

How wind power changes with altitude?

What is the risk of collision with airplanes?

How power kites can pull their steering units along a circular path?

How big a Kite Gen power plant is?
In a 100 MW power plant the steering units, pulled by tethered power kites, move at ground level along a ring-shaped circular path of approx. 1 000 m diameter.

How much energy a Kite Gen power plant produces?
It is estimated that a 100 MW power plant can produce approx. 500 GWh yearly. As an example, this is the average electrical power generated per approx. 86 000 inhabitants in Europe during 2003 (see International Energy Agency - IEA Statistics Division. 2006. Energy Balances of OECD Countries, 2006 edition).

What is the cost of the energy produced by a Kite Gen power plant?
A 100 MW power plant is estimated to deliver a cost of energy produced lower than 0.03 Euro per kWh, inferior to what is today obtained through fossil fuels. Even better costs are expected from bigger and more powerful plants.

What is the troposphere?
The troposphere is the closest to the ground layer of Earth's atmosphere, with a thickness of approx. 8 km at the poles and 18 km at the equator. Is where all of our weather (and the greenhouse effect) occurs.

How wind power is calculated?
Wind power is measured in W/m² (Watt per square meter) of swept area and is equal to ½ ρ v³ (where ρ is air density in kg/m³ and v is wind speed in m/s).

How wind power changes with altitude?
Leaving the ground, as altitude increases, wind speed on average increases (and wind power grows with the cube of wind speed) and air density decreases (but wind power decreases linearly with air density, and at 1 000 m air density is reduced by approx. 10% only). Wind power therefore always tends to grow from ground to approx. 10 000 m of altitude, see Wind data page.

What is the risk of collision with airplanes?
A Kite Gen power plant must obtain from the competent authorities (usually the national administration for civil aviation) the needed flight restrictions on the airspace above, where airplanes and any other kind of airborne vehicles should not be allowed to enter. Such restricted areas have internationally uniformed rules and are already granted for other kinds of civil installations (for example nuclear power plants, oil refineries). A typical P (Prohibited) Area, where no flight is allowed and the risk tends to zero, has an altitude above the ground of 5 000 ft (equal to 1 524 m) and a radius of at least 1 nautical mile (equal to 1 852 m); thus the resulting cylinder has a volume of 16.4 km³ (equal to approx. 579 billion cubic feet).

How power kites can pull their steering units along a circular path?
Power kites fly in the wind maximizing lift (like a glider) against drag (unlike a parachute). For this reason they can be faster than wind and are able to sail against it, not only succeeding in pulling the steering units along circular paths but also maintaining almost all the time an effective tangential traction.