Business Technology: Go Fly a Wind Turbine --- Engineers Are Creating Kites With Rotors to Generate Energy at Higher

Altitudes By Russell Gold 929 words 30 August 2012 The Wall Street Journal J B6 English (Copyright (c) 2012, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.) As wind powers an increasing amount of electricity generation, entrepreneurs are hoping to replace modern windmills with a high-tech version of an even older technology: kites. Winds are stronger and more consistent at higher altitudes, but building a 100-story-tall turbine isn't cost-effective. So engineers are working on using kites to send aloft power generators that create energy when mounted rotors are spun by the wind; they transmit electricity through the cables that tie them to the earth as a string tethers a child's kite. Among the companies building prototypes are KiteFarms LLC in Kilauea, Hawaii; Joby Energy in Santa Cruz, Calif.; and Kite Gen in Torino, Italy, in addition to a couple of university-based consortia in Europe. Further along in commercializing the technology appears to be Makani Power Inc., in Alameda, Calif., which says it has built one model capable of generating 30 kilowatts of electricity, enough for about 20 average U.S. homes. Makani, which is partly backed by Google Inc., is also working on a portable kite-in-a-box for the Army to deploy during disaster-relief operations. Some kite-power developers say that they were inspired by kite-boarding, a sport where people on modified surfboards hold large kites to propel them over the waves. "You are cruising along with your kite and realize you replaced a 100-horsepower motor boat," said Robert Lumley, the founder of KiteFarms, which recently got financing to develop a prototype kite. Land-mounted wind turbines are a small, but rapidly growing, segment of global power generation. Conventional wind-power operators had 238 gigawatts of power-generation capacity in 2011, up from 24 gigawatts globally a decade earlier, according to REN21, an international, government-supported institute that supports renewable-energy development. Global power-generation capacity of all types is around 5,000 gigawatts, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Kite power would be a new twist, though the Federal Aviation Administration will need to approve any kite-mounted turbines. The technology hasn't yet been embraced by many utilities, even those that are sold on the benefits of wind generation. "We're sticking with old-fashioned ground-based wind power at this point," said Roger Thompson, a spokesman for Puget Sound Energy Inc., a power company in Bellevue, Wash. But some power companies said they were keeping a close eye on the technology because it solves a major problem for wind generation: the cost of building traditional turbines, with their towers and giant blades. The companies declined to be named, saying they didn't want to let competitors know of their interest. Traditional tower-based turbines are expensive to build, but then enjoy low operating costs and no fuel costs. Airborne wind power also enjoys low operating and zero fuel costs -- but slashes the upfront capital costs. Makani says it believes it can generate wind power for $30 per megawatt hour, compared with $58 for new land-based turbines, partly because of the lower capital costs.

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"We're offsetting a large amount of steel and concrete with computational sophistication," said Corwin Hardham, chief executive of Makani Power. He says Makani wind turbines will use one-tenth of the materials needed for a traditional wind turbine and deliver more consistent power. The key to making these machines work is the ability of the rotors to switch from power generators to propellers that can keep the kites aloft when the wind dies down. Onboard computers will make many thousands of adjustments to ensure the kite remains aloft for months at a time. The Makani machines are also capable of flying by themselves. If the tether were to break, the kites are programmed to fly down and belly flop in a predetermined spot. Makani's machines aren't kites like the balsa-wood-and-cloth toys that kids make dance in the wind. They are basically small aircraft capable of cutting through the wind in large circles, mimicking on a larger scale the path of traditional wind-turbine blades -- recreating their power-generation abilities without the expensive tower and large blades. The turbines are mounted on kites made of carbon fiber, like the material used for surfboards, which has become cheaper in recent years. So have the cost of sensors needed to determine the orientation and location of the kites and the computing power needed to determine their paths. Even more important, unmanned-flight technology has been improving, thanks to military-funded research on drone aircrafts, with some of the Pentagon's advances in materials and navigational software becoming commercially available. The company, which has received $21 million in funding from Google and its venture-capital arm and a $6 million grant from the Advanced Research Projects Agency at the Energy Department, is working on a 600-kilowatt unit with a 90-foot wingspan that would fly in vertical circles in excess of 130 miles per hour. The blades of modern wind turbines top out at 200 miles per hour. This larger unit -- the 30-kilowatt model has a wingspan of just 30 feet -- would compete with traditional wind farms for utility power-generation contracts. Ultimately, Mr. Hardham says he believes there is a market for an even larger, five-megawatt version for offshore locations, comparable in size to the largest offshore wind turbines today. Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires License this article from Dow Jones Reprint Service Document J000000020120830e88u0002h Search Summary Text Date Source Company Subject Industry Region Language sc=j and corwin In the last 6 months All Publications All Companies All Subjects All Industries All Regions English Or Spanish

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