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Airborne Wind Energy pp 441–462Cite as

Crosswind Kite Power with Tower

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Part of the book series: Green Energy and Technology ((GREEN))

Abstract

Crosswind kite power replaces the tower and the support structure of a conventional wind turbine by a lightweight tether leading to a potentially lower levelized cost of electricity. However, in this chapter it is shown that tethering the kite to the top of a tower instead of to the ground can have advantages: Most notably, the “cosine loss” is reduced, i.e. the misalignment of the wind velocity vector and the direction of the traction power transfer. Hence, a tower can increase the power and energy yield up to about the double. Even for small tower heights compared to the kite’s operation altitude, a significant efficiency increase can be obtained. Further advantages of a tower are highlighted e.g. for the autonomous start and landing and for the wind velocity measurement. Possible tower concepts are illustrated.

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References

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the anonymous reviewers and the editors for their helpful comments. This study was supported by Bund der Freunde der TU München e.V.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Electrical Drive Systems and Power Electronics, Technical University of Munich, Arcisstrasse 21, 81477, Munich, Germany

    Florian Bauer & Ralph M. Kennel

  2. Munich School of Engineering, Research group “Control of renewable energy systems (CRES)”, Technische Universität München, Lichtenbergstr. 4a, 85748, Garching, Germany

    Christoph M. Hackl

  3. The Henry Samueli School of Engineering, Power Electronics Laboratory, University of California, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA

    Keyue Smedley

Authors
  1. Florian Bauer
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  2. Christoph M. Hackl
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  3. Keyue Smedley
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  4. Ralph M. Kennel
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Florian Bauer .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Roland Schmehl

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Bauer, F., Hackl, C.M., Smedley, K., Kennel, R.M. (2018). Crosswind Kite Power with Tower. In: Schmehl, R. (eds) Airborne Wind Energy. Green Energy and Technology. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-1947-0_18

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-1947-0_18

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-10-1946-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-10-1947-0

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