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High altitude wind:
the long awaited energetic “miracles” [1] |
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Massimo Ippolito [2] - KiteGen Research
s.r.l. [3] August 2016 |
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KiteGen is certain to have seized the holy
grail of sustainable energy. We registered more than 40 international
patents, have been cited in more than 350 scientific publications[4], and,
from different points of view, corroborate and complete our thesis. KiteGen is the only Italian company (and the only one
focused on energy innovation in the world) in 2015 Cleantech
100 Company's "ones to watch" (no Italian company is present in
2016 list). We have been granted the ENI award[5]. These awards and
recognitions were granted after technical diligences, and the various proofs
of concept are real, public and documented. But this technology has not yet
breached into the system, we still lack support from institutions, and The
Netherlands is the only country offering academic courses on this subject.
High altitude wind energy is a grand project needing to step up to a
completely new level, from research to industry, with the entire onus, as
well as the impact on employment, implied by this change. In 2006, KiteGen manufactured a generator already competitive,
even in its first stages of development, with solar panels for both costs and
energy supply reliability. Nevertheless, we got to be helpless witnesses
while all institutional support went to conventional wind power sources and
photovoltaic. It's easy to figure out the charismatic role and enthusiastic
growth this new energy device could have had, had it been granted any kind of
start-up support. KiteGen kept up working on design
and validation on its own, a task for a team much bigger than the one that
actually accomplished it. Now theoretical basis, prototypes, intellectual
property, technology package, are real assets on which the restart will be
based, and with which we can spread the world of the change it could bring. KiteGen is an opportunity Italy and Europe cannot pass
up, due to their serious and persisting energy deficit. Seems like the idea
that energy is a "problem we cannot solve, yet crucial for every country
and their economy" gets stronger by the day. We here try to propose
again the rationale of KiteGen Project, the state
of art, and the trouble we met while trying to spread that, which is not just
an opportunity anymore, but, for anyone versed enough in energy sector,
without doubt the primary energy source that will feed the future of
civilization. |
[1]https://www.gatesnotes.com/Energy/Energy-Miracles We Need Energy
Miracles By Bill Gates | June 25, 2014 +39 348 0194813 [3]KiteGen Research s.r.l. cso Lombardia 66/c San Mauro Torinese +39 011 9415745 [4] https://scholar.google.it/scholar?hl=it&q=kitegen&btnG=&lr= [5]http://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/tecnologie/2010-06-10/domatore-aquiloni-081200.shtml?uuid=AYwRIPxB |
SUMMARY AND PRESENTATION OF THE PROJECT
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Sequoia Automation is an
industrial engineering firm specializing in the design of software and
electrical/electronic, control and mechanical systems. It has conducted
numerous research and development activities in the past and has also managed
European funded research projects. Its involvement in numerous activities in
the field of energy has given it a profound knowledge of the industry. These
include: control and synchronization of gas turbine generators, robotic
maintenance of high voltage lines, autonomous energy systems, supercapacitors, inertial platforms and energy
regeneration systems in vehicles. Moreover, as a company operating at the
service of KiteGen, Sequoia has the advantage of
forty years of experience as a mechatronics and
R&D design firm. It has accumulated the extensive multidisciplinary
knowledge required for the design and construction of next-generation systems
that integrate various fields of expertise. The company’s assets include
artificial intelligence systems, physics and fluid dynamics engines, inertial
platforms, electric vehicles and nonlinear multi-predictive numerical
controls, parallel kinematic robots and supercapacitors. Since 2008, Sequoia has been
almost exclusively managing the ambitious and complex KiteGen®
project centred on tropospheric
wind power. It has adopted this as a mission as a result of meetings at the
highest levels of European research and with key historical figures in
Italian electrical energy, who expressed their support for Sequoia’s
commitment as an entity certainly capable of meeting the challenge. The
objective has gone beyond a mere corporate project to become a profoundly
ethical and collective mission. With this attitude, Sequoia has invested
several million euros over time in the industrial
training of hundreds of candidates and interns, with the conviction of being
able to develop around them the professional offer necessary for the project.
The success of this strategy surpassed all expectations, generating hundreds
of business initiatives worldwide that are ready to collaborate in a multinational
initiative. The activity conducted so far has
produced a substantial “technology package” describing the innovation in
detail, which has gained significant value from the addition of the physical
and experimental validation of all the steps leading to the distillation of
the knowledge. This has made possible the industrialization and production of
the generators in their final form, with a predeterminable
time to market, a result that has changed the current corporate mission. Other industrial companies
specialized in complementary fields have recently joined Sequoia. These include a composite
materials company with twenty years’ experience in the field of advanced
composites for the aeronautics sector. Throughout its years of activity, the
company has experienced continuous growth in terms of turnover and staff.
This has been possible thanks to investments in equipment and facilities that
have enabled it to gain important contracts in the aeronautical sector and
become a supplier for large aircraft manufacturers, such as Boeing. Thanks to its elevated skills and
experience in the field of advanced composites, it has acquired new contracts
in both the aerospace and the industrial sector, where structures and
components that were once made of metal are now being replaced with much
lighter and more durable composite parts. The markets it serves ranges from
the aeronautic and automotive sectors to automation, printing, packaging,
railways and energy. The scope of the specialist
composite company is to support, produce and industrialize products that
require improvement in terms of technology and performance. This can be
achieved by replacing traditional materials with advanced composite
materials, or by designing components made with these new technologies. The KiteGen wing, which is a completely new and extreme
object, can reap the benefits of this extensive experience, as well as the
specialized equipment designed for working on large monolithic composites. |
OBJECTIVES AND STRATEGY OF THE PROJECT
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With the exception of
hydroelectric power, which is, however, limited in its application due to the
relative scarcity of sites and viable conditions, humanity has not yet
managed to identify new sources of renewable energy that are not dependent on
subsidies. These contribute to the deterioration of the economic downturn,
reducing consumptions and driving away various industrial initiatives from
the country, together with the respective jobs, due to their distorting
effect on energy prices. Within the energy sector, the project’s objective is
the industrialization and management of the production of wind generators
that can extract energy from the troposphere. This extends up to about 9,000m
above sea level and has been shown by comparative analyses to be the
cleanest, most concentrated and most abundant natural energy resource. For
this purpose, our research has examined technological methods to make use of
this mechanical energy resource, equivalent to over 200 times the current
basic needs of human kind. The work has focused on architecture, technologies
and materials for the development of these wind machines, and solutions have
emerged with dramatic improvements in performance compared to existing
methods. These take advantage of the wide availability of new mechatronic intelligence in order to exploit the kinetic
energy of high altitude winds. This produces the following
advantages: * Particular lightness and
dematerialization of the generators (only 20 tons as compared to 1,500 tons
for an equivalent wind turbine), thus greatly facilitating production,
installation and maintenance logistics. * Access to substantially larger
wind front areas compared to traditional wind turbines, allowing a much
greater quantity of energy to be harvested, even with winds considered not
very productive. * Access to altitudes where the
wind has greater intensity and consistency than that available to wind
turbines. * Modulable (non-intermittent) baseload
behaviour that multiplies the intrinsic value of
the energy produced. The concepts
developed to meet these requirements, and the respective physical and
experimental validations, have led to the filing of 40 patent families
acknowledged as innovative and industrially applicable, with over 3,000
extensions worldwide. This provides the knowledge base for a desirable and
radical transformation of wind energy production processes and the entire
wind energy sector, as well as a reduction in energy production costs by a
factor of 10, with LCA studies showing an ERoEI 30
times greater than that of wind turbines. The system is
composed of three main parts: a generator robot based on the ground, strong,
lightweight cables of sufficient length to reach the typical operational
altitudes (1,000-2,000 m), and an arched semi-rigid, tensile structural power
wing large enough to provide a tensile force of 300 kN,
with adequate efficiency to allow cross wind flight at 80 m/s. After
extensive studies on the cable requirements, the fatigue behaviour
induced by the winches and the properties of the most innovative fibres on the market, the choice fell on
ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene (UHMWPE). This fibre
fully meets the specifications for durability and strength. The generator on
the ground has two lines of alternators that operate pulleys and winches on
which the cables are wound, with the wing connected to the opposite ends by
means of bridles. The generator robot has a pair of opening mobile arms with
2 degrees of freedom for the purpose of keeping the wing suspended. Takeoff
can be performed by exerting sufficient traction on the cables or by rotating
the arms to overcome stall speed through centrifugal force. During takeoff
the wing moves away tracing figure 8 trajectories (lemniscate)
and rises up until it finds sufficient wind (cut-in – about 4 m/s) to produce
a nominal force of 150 kN on each cable. At this
point the cables can unwind at a speed equal to the wind speed less the
cut-in speed in order to maintain a constant nominal force. Thus there is a
power on each cable of 150*v kW, reaching the nominal 3 MW when the unwinding
speed v equals 10 m/s (wind speed of 14 m/s). This mechanical power is
transformed into electrical power by alternators connected to pulleys and
reels. When the cables are completely unwound, the sideslip manoeuvre is performed (one of the innovations described
in the patents), which allows the cables to be rewound differentially (one of
the cables is kept a few dozen metres shorter than
the other), causing the wing to assume the shape of a flag (thanks to its articulated
rigidity) and lose its aerodynamic properties to minimize resistance during
the recovery of the cables. During this phase
the alternators act as motors, with an energy consumption of 1% of that
produced in the active phase. Once the wing has returned to a minimum
altitude (programmed based on wind conditions) the length and tension of the
cables is rebalanced, the wing recovers its natural arc shape and aerodynamic
properties, and once more provides the necessary nominal force and mechanical
power to perform further cycles. The major innovation factors contained in
the patents include devices designed to increase the flight stability and
control, such as radio controlled ailerons and bridles with programmed
elasticity to continuously optimize the wing’s angle of attack, as well as
solutions to reduce the resistance of the cables, giving them an aerodynamic
profile. Other highly
innovative aspects include the use of inertial platforms (an accelerometer,
gyroscope, magnetometer and altimeter integrated into a miniaturized device).
These devices, positioned on the wing and on the mobile parts of the
ground-based generator and linked to the control unit via radio, allow the
computer to create accurate real-time dynamic models of the mechanical and wing
parts through the application of mathematical operators and Jacobian matrices, to predict their behaviour
in real time and adjust stresses and propagation on the various parts. For
example, a gust of wind that would cause a violent increase in the force transmitted
by the wing through the cables, with the impulse propagated along the cables
at the speed of sound, would be detected by the accelerometers and
transmitted to the ground at the speed of light. This allows stability of
control and dampening, e.g. prompt release of the cables to neutralize the
incoming impulse. |
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The “Wings &
Power” project, co-financed by the region of Piedmont with European funds
(but reduced from the original €7 million to less than €3 million due to the
institution’s financial needs) and successfully concluded in March 2016,
contributed in part to the development of the technological solutions based
on the inventive teaching of the patents and the consequent achievement of
TRL7. Eighty components containing the main innovation elements featured in
the patent portfolio have been designed, manufactured and validated (now
grouped into 10 machine sub-assemblies). Recognition of this level of
technological advancement was confirmed by the signing of an important
contract with a chemical multinational for the purchase of hundreds of
generators, subject to the subsequent achievement of TRL 9. The steps to be
taken in this respect are the establishment of a production line capable of
manufacturing the product with industrial quality and of re-testing it in
operational conditions to meet the conditions of the existing contract and
other contracts, which in all likelihood will be easily obtained through with
establishment of an energy production track record. It offers reliability,
safety and economic sustainability only possible for a product with the
highest industrial standards. The region of Piedmont has numerous other
outstanding industrial realities capable of handling partial or entire
sub-assemblies and providing the necessary quality for their production. The
proposed initiative, in addition to distributing the innovations produced
during the R&D phase among local companies, which can also have
repercussions on various other products, together with the unprecedented
performance of the generator, will help create linked activities and a
subcontracting sector engaged in the production of thousands of machines per
year for export all over the world, with the recruitment of tens of thousands
of workers with the medium and high levels of specialization typical of the
aerospace industry. |
TECHNOLOGICAL
FIELD
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The project can be
considered a fusion between mechatronics and aerospace.
This combination often encounters a cognitive bias that tends to raise or
relegate it to the sphere of basic research, although efforts to provide
information and updates soon lead to recognition of its industrial
significance and readiness. The basic research was completed thanks to
intense collaboration between Sequoia, some hi-tech companies, and
researchers and interns from the Universities of Turin, Milan, Leuven,
Stuttgart, Delft, Wuppertal, Stanford, etc., and initially catalysed by research funding from the region of
Piedmont. In the event of its programmatic adoption, the impact of this new
wind technology on the socio-economic system could be successfully replicated
on international markets, providing a valuable response to the ongoing economic
crisis and decline in employment, since energy, and only that with low
production costs, is what ultimately drives human progress. The power wing is
the focus of the collaboration with our composite manufacturing partner
company. In the economy of the generators, this is a consumable material,
like the cables, with an envisaged annual rate of replacement. These
circumstances and opportunities outline a synergistic future, where the robot
generators are installed in production sites and the periodic supply of wings
links the power generation companies operating in the local area with the
firms manufacturing the machines and the wings. A business model can be
envisaged that includes maintenance and the supply of consumables. |
TECHNICAL
FEASIBILITY
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In terms of publications, KiteGen has given rise to over 300 documents and active
collaboration with dozens of academic institutions. Istituto
Sant’Anna of Pisa and the University of Bologna
have prepared an orientation document: Airborne Wind Energy
Systems: A review of the technologies Antonello Cherubini(a), Andrea Papini(a), Rocco Vertechy(b), Marco Fontana(a), a) PERCRO SEES, TeCIP Institute, Scuola Superiore Sant׳Anna, Pisa, Italy b)
Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Bologna, Italy KiteGen undoubtedly represents a new
development in the field of energy, with a feasibility, scalability and merit
factor that can be calculated and assessed in advance with great reliability,
as can the steps and investments required to implement it as an energy
support at the service of the community, with analytical data already
available in sufficient detail from KiteGen.
Unfortunately, due to the totally new and multidisciplinary nature of the
system, the institutions cannot provide the necessary and comprehensive
competences for its systematic adoption, both in terms of investment and of
research. This makes it difficult to establish a complete supply chain and
the procurement of human resources capable of acquiring the necessary
knowledge and determination. From a close analysis of the underlying
dynamics, three types of obstacles can be seen that delay the emergence of
the technology, which in the light of the current and not-so-bright scenario
of typical renewable sources remains an obvious and essential source. The first obstacle is undoubtedly
due to the particular interests of certain economic sectors, which are
opposing the KiteGen concept while they can, with a
considerable financial commitment. Surprisingly, these are parties involved
with sources currently considered as renewable and that benefit from support
policies for their deployment. KiteGen is the first
ever source which, once the initial technological learning phase is
completed, will no longer need aid but will itself become a powerful economic
engine, dramatically abandoning the subsidy policy. The second obstacle that involves KiteGen is connected with politics and ideological
organizations. Surprisingly, these are groups related to scaremongering over
climate, the environment, overpopulation and dwindling resources. Knowing KiteGen very well, they should be supporting it instead
of opposing it and feeding on the consensus that comes from an alarmist and
superstitious attitude. They become increasingly pervasive, getting considerable
power and economic benefits, as long as the various alarms remain without
effective solutions, and KiteGen undoubtedly
represents a threat to these privileges. The third one has
already been mentioned, namely the difficulty of grasping a highly multidisciplinary
and unfamiliar concept. KiteGen would be able
to address these difficulties effectively if attitudes more open to dialogue
could be established between the evaluation sessions and the project. To this
end, a review is provided below for better prior clarification of the main
points confirming the project’s technical feasibility, which, from our
experience, tend to disorient those unfamiliar with the design and sizing of
the generating machines and the wing in the light of the design specifications: |
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Lift,
flight speed and axial load of the arched semi-rigid wing |
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Although this is the
topic most developed at the level of scientific literature, with substantial
formalization and numerical examples, the difficulty normally remains of
distinguishing the behaviour of a load-bearing wing
from a mere parachute, leading to misunderstandings that are difficult to
resolve. The axial force propagated on the cables depends mainly on the
wing’s flight speed squared and only in a linear direction from the surface
of the wing. The flight speeds are in the order of 80m/s. The forces generated
amount to tens of tons of traction and have been specifically studied due to
their relevance to the production of energy. |
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Duration,
repeatability and reliability of flight |
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This appears to be
another thorny issue, and is extremely debated in the numerous online
communities where KiteGen is discussed. Here we can
state emphatically that the flight is extremely safe and reliable. It should
be borne in mind that the wind seen from the wing is always stabilized by the
strategy of unwinding the cables, so that even a sudden and total absence of
natural wind would not change the wing’s flight parameters as the system can
retract the cables, thereby creating the necessary wind for the manoeuvres. Obviously, when there is prolonged absence of
natural wind the wing has to be taken down in order not to unnecessarily
consume the energy required to keep it in flight. |
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Take
off and handling of the wing on the ground |
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The take off function has been
brilliantly resolved by KiteGen, with an extremely
reliable procedure that can also be interrupted or aborted after takeoff
without causing damage to the wing or to the robot. Takeoff of the large
power wing, which is rightly considered the most complex and risky manoeuvre, is one of the issues that have been
successfully resolved, although in this case KiteGen
has suspended the normal disclosure of its discoveries to the international
scientific community. Its role as a first mover and prime innovator in the
industry is not given the recognition and respect it duly merits. This has
led us to resume the natural and customary privacy procedure regarding
confidential information. |
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Tensile
structural strength and durability of the wing |
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The wing chord length is currently
4 metres; by identifying the various sections and
materials that compose the wing, it has been possible to validate its
strength, providing a safety factor aligned along the entire kinematic chain,
which includes the cable hooks, reinforcement patches, hinges on the flexible
joint segments and wing sections. |
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Strength
and durability of the UHMWPE cables |
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The ultra-high-molecular-weight
polyethylene has been extensively tested in conditions of use, with measures
taken to extend its service life. The results are in line with the
theoretical predictions and indicate over a year of use before scheduled
replacement. |
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Aerodynamic
drag of the cables during flight |
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This point has undergone a recent
theoretical evolution that has been very positive for the project, as the
scientific literature has always simplified the aerodynamic model, combining
the drag of the ropes and that of the wing to arrive at a particularly unfavourable overall parameter, which, however, was not
validated in real tests. A complete and comprehensive mathematical model has
allowed us to provide a usable theoretical validation and to document a
further advantage of the KiteGen solutions, in that
the use of the double cable provides a higher safety standard than a
redundant system without any significant drawbacks. |
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Functions
and load of the stem |
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KiteGen, having exposed the technology
and opportunities to the public, is often subjected to baseless criticism,
such as the misinterpretation of the function of the robot arms. These arms
perform the function of supporting the wing on the ground, as it weighs about
300 kg, and are never involved in the operational forces of the system in flight,
as the arms always remain collinear to the cables, imparting at most a normal
force required for cable measurement and tension control operations, and thus
in reality the arms are sensors. |
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Load on
the first idler pulley |
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All the load of the
cables is conveyed through the stem to the first pulley, which is positioned
in a central position to the fifth wheel so that the loads from the cables do
not place any stress on the structure due to variations in wind direction or
flight altitude. |
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Angle
of wrap and load on the pulley train |
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This is already a more enlightened
and informed exception, raised by only a few of our interlocutors. This
aspect is particularly developed in KiteGen and has
led to the filing of two new patents for high-efficiency pulleys. The
function of the pulleys fitted to the alternators is to transfer the flow and
offload the tension of the cables, transforming it into motor torque. |
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Generating
and rewinding power, duty cycle |
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As the wind speed varies, so does
the productive duty cycle. Since the rewinding speed has been sized to 20m/s
and the maximum unwinding speed in the production phase to 10m/s, it can be
calculated that the duty or pumping cycle from one extreme is divided into
one third of the time for rewinding and 2 thirds for traction. The power
required for retrieving the wing in sideslip is 50 kW. Efficiency of the
conversion of the mechanical power into electricity The mechanical power
conveyed by the cables is converted by multipolar
alternators with torque control and feedback on speed and combined position. Flight
control. The control system
is divided into a HAL (hardware abstraction layer) and a high-level procedure
that decides the path of the wing through the airspace. The calculation
methods are all based on quaternions, which are not
susceptible to gimbal lock, eliminate singularities
and possible ambiguities in the geometric interpretation of the signals and
trace orientations up to ± 4π. The high-level procedure
was created with two simultaneous settings, the first is an analytical
control provided with artificial intelligence and the second an intensive
calculation approach with real-time physics and fluid dynamic engines, which
implement a non-linear control based on multiple models, called predictive
agents. CONDITIONS OF QUALIFIED RESEARCH
The previous
activity has been carried out by and for KiteGen
with the following results: * The first HAWP
(high altitude wind power) initiative worldwide to produce abundant
electrical energy through this novel method, already in 2006, through a
research prototype developed internally and then shared with Polytechnic of
Turin as the experimental and study base for dozens of master’s and doctoral
degree theses. * The first
initiative in the world to have completed the particularly efficient yoyo or
pumping kite cycle with sideslip, selected after testing the alternatives and
the implementation and cycle time. * The first in the
world to create an algorithmic control based on artificial intelligence and
an inference engine demonstrating automatic piloting. * The first
worldwide to create a high computational intensity control based on parallel
computing and physics/fluid dynamic engines in real time to implement and demonstrate
non-linear and multi-predictive control. * The first to
demonstrate automatic piloting of the wing solely through the sensitivity of
the ground-based stem to the direction of the cables, which has become a
redundancy support in sensor fusion. * The first
worldwide to achieve totally instrumental take-off and landing without any
human intervention. * The first and only
initiative to have collected and validated sufficient system specifications
and to conclude the basic research stage in favour
of industrialization on a utility scale. * The first and only
initiative to design, build and validate a large-scale, high-efficiency
composite power wing suitable for energy production, in line with and derived
from the high specialization in aerospace in the local region. * The first and only
initiative to have completed its final designs at a level sufficient to
launch batch production of systems and wings of industrial quality and
reliability. * The sole
intellectual property owner of the various HAWP concepts and the key
technologies for their implementation. * The sole owner of the
KG-Carousel concept, which offers the GW scale generators. Nevertheless, the
following issues still need to be addressed: broadening of awareness and
understanding of the technology, introduction of the technological learning
curve and the tropicalization of the machines, and
further scalability, both towards greater power levels and in terms of making
the system more compact. IMPORTANCE OF THE INNOVATIVE POTENTIAL OF THE
PROPOSAL
With KiteGen we have documented certainty of finally having
the most precious gift for mankind: an abundant, economical and sustainable
source of energy. The proposed technology has the
capacity to fully meet the needs of the global electricity market, guaranteed
by a natural “field” with a potential hundreds of times greater than human
needs, with no adverse affect on weather patterns and global climate (ref.
Ken Caldeira Stanford University). The low capital
cost of the generator and the fact that the maintenance cost is proportional
to the energy produced is a hopeful sign that the technology will have a
beneficial dampening effect on energy prices for industrial needs in the
short term and on retail electricity prices in the medium term. This would favour restoration of the industrial ecosystem and the
creation of new businesses, which are currently held back by high energy
costs and would benefit from the sustainability offered by this unprecedented
source of abundant clean energy. The low cost of energy would give
access to markets other than that of electrical energy, such as transport and
civil and industrial heating, now dominated by hydrocarbons, and the
respective industrial sectors. The type of innovation is mechatronics/aerospace and the most innovative element
with respect to the state of the art is certainly the wing. The availability
of an instrumented and implemented power wing is the principal enabling and
exclusivity factor for large-scale generation of cheap energy from tropospheric wind. The concept of a wing of such great
power is totally new. The laboratories around the world that have
successfully reproduced the KiteGen tropospheric wind generator have shown an energy
production and limit of a few dozen kW due to use of inadequate sport kites. KiteGen conducted an investigation on the wing at a very
early stage, which seemed essential in order to reach utility scale,
achieving a performance at least one hundred times that of small-scale
systems, which produce expensive energy and find no path towards incremental
scalability. KiteGen therefore represents a leap in
quality to give birth to the economic sector of tropospheric
wind energy, made possible by megawatt class generators. Moreover, the
modular design or, more simply, the kite wind farm concept, could even be
scaled to the gigawatt class, i.e. to compete with
the broader segment of the fossil fuel energy market. CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT
KiteGen is well advanced in the research
and experimentation of the High Altitude Wind Power (HAWP) concept. The
innovations and results have continued at a considerable pace, with less
attention paid to common perception and possible comprehension, albeit
unintentionally, as this would have been an unsustainable cost and
commitment. This has resulted in a widening of the cognitive gap and
noticeable cognitive blocks, both in academic theoretical progress and in
many scientific publications on the emerging science of KiteGen.
One goal of the
project is to create and broaden understanding of the project scenario in
order to establish or recompose a critical mass of players that can
creatively guide the industrial initiative and the strategic relationships
required for its foreseeable status as a large industry. There is therefore
an essential need for effective training support, which should be provided by
the institutions in the region. The stakes are high, the energy market is
virtually untapped, abundant and very receptive, and the current objective is
also one of organization, as the project can now pass from the hands of the
scientists, designers and prototype builders to those of the technicians who
optimize production, including production line equipment. From this
perspective, collaboration with industrial partners, like that with our
composite manufacturer, is of strategic importance in order to address the
issue in the area of know-how with the very high quality standards required. In order to justify
the path taken by the project, which was arbitrary only in appearance, we can
affirm that we have discovered and documented that it is subject to
thresholds of scalability, which reside mainly in the design sizing of the
power-to-weight ratio of the wing: •
Up to 80kW nominal power, implementation of the technology is simple and many
laboratories have successfully reproduced and confirmed experiences very
similar to Mobilegen, our first 40 kW KiteGen generator, which only required a few weeks of
work for its construction and functional operation, using wings designed for
sports purposes. All possible evolutions have already been explored at this
power level, including the production cycle and automatic flight with
multi-predictive control software. •
In the 80kW - 3MW range we have tried various solutions: if the wing is large
and made from cloth (dacron sail fabric), it gives
way under stress and/or performs inadequately; if it is rigid and made from
composite material, it is too fast and control intensive and requires more
wind for takeoff, as well as a generator robot with a long enough arm to
provide sufficient space for the necessary manoeuvres. • Finally, a sizing
of 3MW (or above) has enabled us to show that a large composite wing of 130 m2
begins to support itself when flying at 14m/s and with 2 m/s of natural wind,
which is already quite manageable in terms of the take-off. However, the manoeuvring robot permits no approximations, as we are
talking in safety terms of a sizing of over 40 tons of cable pull and a
double arm to support the wing at rest in an unfolded configuration. The general design
rule that the tests of the various KiteGen
prototypes have highlighted is that as the wing becomes larger and more
efficient, and simpler in technological and operational terms, the ground
robot becomes decidedly much more demanding, with much greater performance
requirements. Obviously, the robot is simply a special machine that has to
respond to clear specifications, and therefore only requires sound
engineering practices, without involving design uncertainties. The solution
to the problem of scalability, which necessarily must tend towards very large
versions, both in terms of size and of power, was based on
physical/aerodynamic issues rather than strategic choice. This step has been
similarly encountered and confirmed by all the laboratories around the world
that have replicated the KiteGen experiences with
similar success. As might be
expected, the KiteGen project is beginning to
become known and recognized by stakeholders. We are also the only Cleantech “100 to watch” company from Italy and the only
one in the world dealing with renewable energy. Nevertheless, we often
encounter criticisms in the social media, some very agitated and others
accusing us of an attitude that can be described as “megalomania”. This
is certainly an opportunity to explain that the main reasons for the
disproportionate sizes are the global energy problem and the undeniable
magnitude of the untapped field that KiteGen seeks
to exploit. KiteGen is merely a light, enabling
technology that allows effective utilization of this field. In a similar way to KiteGen, the phenomenon of “horizontal drilling”, which
has revolutionized the hydrocarbon sector, was not understood immediately.
The mere invention of a technological support cannot be accused of being
disproportionate, although the results are known and highly relevant. Put another way, the
invention of the fishing rod bears no responsibility for the large amount of
fish in the sea, but fishing rods can feed an entire population. Consequently, it can
be clearly understood that if we are speaking of exaggeration, this does not
apply to KiteGen. However, the evident incapacity
of the institutions to relate appropriately with KiteGen
in order to verify the programme’s undoubted
strategic importance, which KiteGen has highlighted
and is offering to the country, is unjustified. Yet important events in the
energy sector always involve the direct participation of the institutions and
governments of the world.
BRINGING R&D ACTIVITIES TO AN ADVANCED STAGE IN
RELATION TO ENTRY INTO THE MARKET
The R&D work
carried out by the proponent, also as part of the co-financed regional
project “Wings & Power”, has led to an advanced stage of development and
the achievement of TRL7, as recognized by ENEA (the Italian National Agency
for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development) in the
parliamentary audition dedicated to tropospheric wind
technologies held on 08.01.2015
http://www.infoparlamento.eu/index.php?option=com_mtree&task=att_download&link_id=5774&cf_id=76. Having achieved this
goal, our activities have been focused on the industrialization of the
technology through validation of the components and their specifications, in
view of bringing most of them up to TRL 8. This proposal is therefore
motivated by the need to accelerate the start of production and reduce the
time to market. The public support required, far from significantly covering
the costs of industrialization, which amount to €80 million, is mainly geared
towards recognition and acceptance of the previous R&D work and the
future industrial development, with its corollary of employment and
attraction of new investments. This recognition is in itself an engine of
trust and cooperation on the part of the numerous companies in the region
which will be involved as suppliers. STRATEGIC NATURE OF THE INTERVENTION
Sequoia Automation,
the proponent’s operational partner company, was created specifically (from
the sales of a business unit in 2006) as an engineering research and study
centre devoted entirely to the KiteGen project.
Therefore the finalization of the project, with achievement of the
industrialization of the product, is its prime and founding objective. The
R&D activity has been part of a well-defined strategic plan, as is the
validation and industrialization activity currently in progress. The public
intervention received in support (the aforementioned “Wings & Power”)
would also have permitted a corporate reorganization, necessary for shifting
the focus of the personnel and facility from the R&D phase to that of
industrialization, had it not been reduced from the original €7 million to
less than €3 million, resulting in increased difficulty in recruiting,
training and retaining the necessary highly skilled personnel. This
reorganization is therefore still pending and increasingly urgent and
necessary to avoid having to sell the technology as a whole, presumably to major
foreign players. IMPACT ON INDUSTRY AND ON THE CORPORATE AND
PRODUCTIVE STRUCTURE
Energy production
from renewable sources has two available global markets. The first, which is
worth US$500 billion a year in terms of investment based on COP21 and the
Kyoto Protocol, includes a share for innovation and massive support for
serial deployment of mature sources, mainly wind and solar power. The second
is the far more important energy market, which includes fossil fuels. In the
short and very short terms, if properly informed regarding the potential of KiteGen, the first market could divert significant
proportions of its funding for the support of this innovation and the
deployment of KiteGen. It is sufficient to mention
the Breakthrough Energy Coalition established by Bill Gates, which aims to
invest $2 billion in innovation and has already publicly mentioned KiteGen and the HAWP sector as projects worthy of
attention. After the project
for the first industrial production batch, the partner companies will have
acquired the expertise and capability to produce the most important parts of
the system: the wing, sensors, light electronics and software. They will also
have acquired the capacity to manage the logistical and technical
coordination of a supply chain for all the other components, including
mechanical and electromechanical parts, power electronics and cooling
systems. This capacity will enable the subsequent production and installation
of batches of generators in the order of hundreds of units per year. Putting
the generators into production will require the establishment of companies
dedicated to the maintenance, supervision and operation of the plants. The competitive
advantage acquired thanks to the intellectual property rights and industrial
research will allow the implementation of a strategic plan for the expansion
of the production capacity in the order of thousands of units per year. The
direct employment of resources in Piedmont (including partner companies and
linked activities) to enable the launch and operability of the initiative can
be estimated initially at around 30 researchers for R&D activities, 10
administrative operators for human resources, administration and procurement
activities, 10 sales managers for global wind farming start-up activities and
120 other workers including production operatives, maintenance technicians
and product engineers for the manufacture of the KiteGen
generators in the factory. The total initial employment will be at least 170
people at one year from the start of the initiative. By the second year,
another 100 workers will be needed for the construction and the maintenance
of the KiteGen generator fleet. Subsequent
expansion of production to batches of thousands will result in an increase in
employment to over 2,000 workers. IMPACT ON THE REGION EMPLOYMENT
The project, if
implemented, will guarantee an extremely high return of employment, plausibly
in the order of hundreds of thousands of workers. This is because once the
competitiveness of the energy produced with this technology has been
verified, the market will expand in a predictable and calculable manner,
justifying the promise. This return of employment may also be seen in the
creation of an industrial chain ranging from the manufacture of the machines,
wings and cables to the installation and management of tropospheric
wind farms (wind farms), which can also lead to redevelopment of the areas most degraded in environmental terms and the
possibility for local authorities to become energy autonomous and/or energy
producers. These more than
reasonable certainties are based on: 1) An energy field
of unimagined magnitude (the tropospheric wind
harvestable from Italy amounts to at least 100 times the exports in
equivalent energy by Saudi Arabia) 2) The ERoEI of KiteGen technology,
which is 5 times that of the best crude oil during the economic boom of the
1950s (30 times that of traditional wind power, 90 times that of photovoltaic
energy and 270 times that of CSP) 3) An
incontrovertible theoretical basis: Google Scholar displays over 350 results
on KiteGen 4) Great experience
and architectural and technological clarity acquired by the proponent 5) Extensive
indicative experimentation necessary for a breakthrough technology, which has
also provided the “proof of concept” of the energy production cycle 6) Non-intermittent
nature of the source. INDUSTRIAL INVESTMENTS
Downstream of the
project for the first industrial production batch, it will be necessary to
expand the supply chain and linked activities, as the electricity sector
worldwide requests the installation of 2 million KiteGen
generators in 20 years. This results in an increase in the production
capacity in the order of 10,000 times that implemented for the first batch.
The light logistics and high added value of the mechatronic
parts of the product eliminates the need for exasperated optimization of the
production costs through outsourcing and leads to a hundred-fold increase in
value, to the benefit of the host region, attracting investments in the order
of tens of billions of euros. Electricity
production and showroom initiatives, such as the kite farm/campus in Giaveno, and an adequate expansion of current
technological and public and private research centres
will be required to provide the personnel training and R&D necessary to
keep the product updated and competitive. INNOVATIVE IMPACT OF THE SOLUTIONS INTRODUCED
KiteGen is the worldwide owner of the
best tropospheric wind energy technologies The impact of tropospheric wind energy is disruptive because the
electricity produced at the projected cost enters directly into competition
with thermal sources and transport fuels. With an electricity cost of less
than €15/MWh, synthetic diesels produced by capture
of atmospheric CO2 and extraction of hydrogen from water become
competitive with that obtained from fossil sources, thereby accessing a TAM
(Total Available market) of $8,000 billion/year, i.e. the entire current
energy market. It follows that the innovative effects of the proposal will
also impact sectors other than electricity generation and radically affect
their processes; for example, boosting heating/air conditioning in both
summer and winter via high efficiency heat pumps (already cost-effective compared
to retail electricity costs at below €90/MWh),
electric cooking (e.g. induction cooking), the recovery of transport battery
materials, jet fuel, electro-foundries, metal smelting, metal forming,
silicon refining, desalination, fertilizers, etc., decisively stimulating the
various related industries. COMPETITIVE
SCENARIO
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For the sake of brevity, assertive
evaluations will follow. They can be documented and debated with due
accuracy. KiteGen is always open to exchanges at
the best competence tier of the sector. In fact, KiteGen
worst hindrance is indeed the lack of forethoughts while establishing energy
policies. Generic innovations in energy KiteGen concept arose in 1999 after an
analytic research on possible future energy sources, lead by CESI (now RSE)
and GRTN (now Terna), with a key contribution from
professor Luigi Paris (father of Italian electric energy). The strict method
used allows us, even as of today, to affirm with proof that KiteGen has a Q factor from 30 to 1000 times greater than
the most notorious actors in this field, and is the one and only able to lead
the transition from fossil fuels. Following examples confirm what we
just stated. Sea power
Pelamis, WaveDragon,
Oyster Acquamarine, Scotrenewables
Tidal Power, Pewec di
ENEA, OTEC Wind power
Beatrice, AlfaVentus,
London Array, El Hierro, Sandia 20MW HWT Solar energy
Ouarzazate, Andasol,
Topaz Solar Farm, IBM Sunflower, Ivanpha, Archimede Nuclear and coal
ITER, CCS, IV generation reactors HAWP
competitors
KiteGen has been the pioneer of high
altitude wind power, and kept on pushing to increase its theoretical and
practical advantage over supposed competitors, having industrial-scale
production as declared objective. As owner of international patents, KiteGen is also free to operate, while having the right
to require overlapping operations (or right out counterfeiters) to cease
operations. KiteGen concept is generally seen as
the best in terms of feasibility and potential over present international
competitors (Makani, Altaeros,
Wind Lift, Skysail, SkyWind Power, Magenn, E-Kite, KPS, Ampix, Twind). |
Other reading about theme
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Italian
http://www.enzopennetta.it/2016/03/cs-intervista-massimo-ippolito/
http://kitegen.com/pdf/giancarlo-costello.html English http://euanmearns.com/high-altitude-wind-power-reviewed/
http://kitegen.com/pdf/Abbate_We_need_more_energy_Eng_final.htm
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The steps of KiteGen project through prototype testing and
decision-making process
Life-cycle analyses confirm these
figures. In our practical industrial design, this huge performance increase
is exploited not to reach high power peaks instead to increase energy
availability through the year, avoiding significant power fluctuations. In
this way, generator production gets near to a baseload-type
performance, almost solving intermittency issues. This production target obviously
implies a mature system, nurtured by substantial investments aimed at
technology development. The improvement we can nowadays esteem for our
prototypes is 16-fold. Definitely remarkable, yet dragged down by some
limiting factors like machinery heat balance, issue not yet tackled and
completely solved.
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