High-Altitude Wind China Tests Flying Megawatt Wind Turbine

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Asia Waypoint

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It looks a bit like a short Zeppelin, but it's an "Awes" and could be the future of wind energy: Researchers in China have just announced a test flight for the most powerful high-altitude wind turbine ever tested.

Henrik Bork, longtime China correspondent for the Süddeutsche Zeitung and the Frankfurter Rundschau, is Managing Director at Asia Waypoint, a consulting agency specializing in China based in Beijing. 

Awes, the abbreviation for "Airborne Wind Energy Systems," are, simply put, wind turbines that do not require pillars. Such turbines are being researched worldwide using different technologies, sometimes in the form of kites, sometimes with drones, and optionally with an onboard generator or a generator on the ground.

Inspired By the Zeppelin

The latest Chinese variant, developed by the Chinese start-up Sawes (with the "S" in the name standing for "Stratosphere") in collaboration with Tsinghua University in Beijing and the "Aerospace Information Research Institute" of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, takes inspiration from the good old Zeppelin:

• A helium-filled airship—called "Aerostat"—will carry relatively lightweight equipment for converting wind into electrical energy to an altitude of 1 mile.
• The electricity is transmitted to the ground via a power cable, which also serves as a tether.
• The new system is called S1500 and is expected to have a capacity of one megawatt, which would be a new world record.

"High-altitude wind is a powerful and largely untapped energy source," said Weng Hanke, CTO of Sawes, recently at a symposium hosted by the broadcaster "Beijing Radio and Television Station." "At 1 mile, the wind blows three times faster than at ground level, enabling up to 27 times more energy to be generated."

At 1 mile, the wind blows three times faster than at ground level, enabling up to 27 times more energy to be generated.

Weng Hanke, CTO von Sawes

Test Flight With One Megawatt Planned

At the same symposium, Weng announced the test flight with a capacity of one MW. Previously, the company had conducted a successful test with its prototype S1000. As its name suggests, it hovered at an altitude of 0.6 miles and generated slightly more than 100 kW.

The planned test with the S1500, if also successful, will already achieve about the power generation capacity of a traditional 330 feet-high wind turbine with one megawatt.

The higher such "wind power plants in the sky," to use one of the more poetic terms for Awes, can fly, the more power they can generate. This is thanks to the laws of physics. According to the basic principle of wind energy, the energy contained in the wind is proportional to the cube of the wind speed. (For those who want to calculate, the formula is P = ½ × ρ × A × v³).

China Promotes the Start-Up Scene

As so often, Chinese researchers are neither the only nor the first to drive a completely new technology forward. A German company has already installed a small Awes system in Mauritius. A start-up founded around MIT had held a height record (1,000 feet or around 305 meters) with its system for a long time.

In China, however, start-ups like Sawes find what is currently likely a globally unique support system in science and technology parks.

In China, however, start-ups like Sawes receive what is likely a globally unique level of support in science and technology parks, where numerous existing manufacturing companies of all kinds, local officials, risk-taking investors, and academics assist them in rapidly transforming their inventions into highly scalable applications—in other words, marketable innovations.

In this case, this is taking place in the "Yueyang Economic Development Zone" in the central Chinese province of Hunan. Not only has Sawes, now partially government-owned, already completed its third round of financing; it has also begun small-scale production of its wind turbine airships and, according to its own statements, has already secured orders worth 500 million Chinese yuan (around 63 million US dollars).

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Deployment Where Conventional Turbines Reach Their Limits

The developers are confident that their airborne wind power plant addresses a significant market gap: Awes are not only useful in remote regions or disaster areas where the use of conventional turbines would be difficult or impossible. Once their production costs decrease through industrial scaling in China, they could also become attractive for commercial wind farms due to their higher capacity per turbine.

Wind in the Stratosphere 200 Times Stronger

As the start-up suggests with its choice of name, it ultimately aims to anchor its Zeppelin generators in the stratosphere, the second layer of the atmosphere beginning at about 6 miles altitude. There, the wind blows 200 times stronger than on the Earth's surface. "Once we generate wind energy there, the cost of electricity could drop to a tenth of its current level," says Weng.

These Hurdles Still Need to Be Overcome

The advantages of the Awes technology also include the fact that suitable areas on Earth with sufficient wind and no settlements are limited, whereas there is still plenty of space in the sky. The only significant hurdles that still need to be addressed are ensuring flight safety through no-fly zones and retrieving the helium-filled flying devices during thunderstorms or strong storms.

Their system can descend very quickly within five minutes during extreme weather events, say the Chinese developers. It is therefore already ideal for generating electricity over remote islands or offshore oil and gas drilling platforms. Additionally, the scientists claim to have made progress in addressing gas leaks, which, they say, keeps their airships operational for up to 25 years.

Potentially Higher Profitability for Wind Farm Operators

However, one of the biggest differences compared to currently operated wind farms on land or offshore is again due to the nature of the Earth and the laws of physics: at higher altitudes, the winds on this planet are more constant than in the lower atmospheric layers, which are disturbed by mountains and ocean currents. This means better conditions for electricity generation and potentially higher profitability for wind farm operators.

Weng and his team are therefore confident that they are on the trail of a commercial alternative to today's wind turbines. "Once these systems are built in large numbers, the electricity they generate could be as cheap as that from conventional wind turbines," says Sawes' chief technology officer.