Airborne Wind Energy Conference (AWEC) of 2019 was informative and motivating for those who participated. We would like to share some insights with the followers of Kitepwoer who could not visit the event.

Roland Schmehl, lead of the airborne wind energy research group at TU Delft and Co-Founder, Advisor at Kitepower, co-organised this event with Oliver Tulloch. Oliver is working at the Wind Energy and Control Centre at the host institution, University of Strathclyde. The Airborne Wind Energy Conference 2019 took place in Glasgow, United Kingdom on 15th-16th October.

Those two days was about wind, networking and sharing the process of the leading companies in the word of AWEsystems. You could have met with Makani, Ampyx Power, SkySails Power, Kitemill, Enerkite and many other AWEsome company representatives. In the Book of Abstracts you can find some interesting informations about the improvements accompanied with sneak peek pictures of the working teams.

So, what happened with kitepower since AWEC 2018?

From the beginning of 2018 until October 2019, Kitepower has performed 92 flights on 65 days at their pilot site in Valkenburg.

Currently, Kitepower is focusing on operating the Kitepower system for longer periods while increasing the power output and reducing the effort for supervision. After this phase, Kitepower will be able to implement more pilot systems in and outside of the Netherlands.

Let us present our 100sqm kite which is the next step for Kitepower to achieve our dream: “Our mission is to develop the first commercial kite powered energy system.”

Last but not least, Kitepower team aimed to further automate the tuning of new kites by testing them in various operating conditions such as rain, fog as well as low- and high wind speeds.