Design Optimization and Sizing for Fly-Gen Airborne Wind Energy Systems

Abstract

Traditional on-shore horizontal-axis wind turbines need to be large for both performance reasons (e.g., clearing ground turbulence and reaching higher wind speeds) and for economic reasons (e.g., more efficient land use, lower maintenance costs, and fewer controllers and grid attachments) while their efficiency is scale and mass independent. Airborne wind energy (AWE) system efficiency is a function of system size and AWE system operating altitude is less directly coupled to system power rating. This paper derives fly-gen AWE system parameters from small number of design parameters, which are used to optimize a design for energy cost. This paper then scales AWE systems and optimizes them at each scale to determine the relationships between size, efficiency, power output, and cost. The results indicate that physics and economics favor a larger number of small units, at least offshore or where land cost is small.