Kitenergy: a radical innovation in wind energy generation

This paper presents an innovative technology of high-altitude wind power generation, indicated as Kitenergy, which exploits the automatic flight of tethered airfoils (e.g. power kites) to extract energy from wind blowing between 200 and 800 meters above the ground. The key points of such a technology are described and the design of large scale plants is investigated here, in order to show that Kitenergy technology has the potential to provide large quantities of renewable energy with competitive cost with respect to fossil sources. Such claims are supported by the results obtained so far in the research activities undergoing at Politecnico di Torino, Italy, including numerical simulations, prototype experiments and wind data analyses