Kites provide clean energy

(Deutsche Welle)

Children everywhere find kites a source of joy, especially when they can fly them high into the air by running on the ground. High-altitude winds capture the imagination of young people, but before long they became a place for a group of researchers who wanted to generate electricity from high winds, especially since winds blow at heights of more than two hundred meters. Stronger and more stable than air near the Earth’s surface.

Because doubling the wind speed can generate wind speeds eight times the current rate, these strong winds can be harnessed to generate more electricity than the rate generated by wind turbines on Earth. In it, Moritz Dahl, head of the Department of Microsystems Engineering at Germany’s University of Freiburg, said harnessing high winds could be one of the “promising” technologies for generating renewable energy in the coming years. “We look at the sky above the conventional turbines and we think this wind is blowing and we can’t use it,” he added.

In turn, Stefan Frock, CEO of “Sky Cells Power”, a German company specializing in wind energy, wants to change the situation and use the world’s largest untapped renewable energy for power generation. Wara isn’t the only one dreaming of exploiting high-altitude wind, as there are many engineers and owners of emerging and international companies racing to generate energy from wind blowing low above the Earth’s surface. cost. While many of these ventures have failed and some are on the brink of bankruptcy, others are making this dream come true.

In 2010, the American energy company Alteros introduced one of the most important first projects, because its prototype was based on a generator attached to a helium balloon, that is, a wind turbine, but without a heavy base and tower. Alaska was the test site, where the generator was connected to the ground via cable, while the company said it was generating electricity from a height of 600 meters, enough for about 50 households.

This coincided with the company’s development of “Sky Sails”, a tall kite that helps to tow container ships, while the idea was to provide up to 10 percent of the diesel used to power these ships’ engines.

In 2013, American tech giant Google acquired Makani, a company specializing in the manufacture of 300-metre-high wind turbines, sparking huge interest in the sector. Electricity is generated by turbines attached to the wings, which rotate with motion.

Although the field still needs major investments and scientific research, Sky Sales CEO Stephen Frock said the technology could help the 1.4 billion people worldwide who live without electricity.

According to a related study, electricity produced by aerial wind systems may be cheaper than electricity generated by diesel generators, or even cheaper than traditional wind power plants.