A plan to make wind-power literally leap out from the box, and sail high into the sky, is the striking vision that this team has put forward. Taking advantage of the stronger and more consistent winds higher in the air, they are seeking to hoist a wind-turbine up to 2,000 feet aloft. Not only could this power source be deployed from a single shipping container in about a day in an emergency – it could offer a new angle to rolling out wind-power, so often strait-jacketed by high costs or local objections of late.
The problem with harnessing wind-power close to the ground is that the wind flow gets disrupted by buildings, trees and other landscape features. This has led to wind turbines being erected onto ever-higher towers, making the most of the cleaner, faster air up there. However, bigger means more cost, and more environmental impact.
But what if the buoyancy of a helium-filled shroud was used to concentrate stronger winds into the blades of a horizontally-aligned turbine? Power would be tapped via a conductive tether that holds the system at the optimal altitude. This unique design is adapted from reliable aerostats – essentially tethered blimps – that have decades of experience lifting multi-ton monitoring equipment such as radars into the air for long periods of time.
This Airborne Wind Turbine concept could be particularly useful in remote locations, where getting traditional energy infrastructure up-and-running can be costly and slow. With up to eight times as much power available at those higher altitudes, the economic case for wind farms in the sky could see them soaring more widely soon.
