Summary of Recent Work
From Wpi-kites
Summary
Two billion people in developing nations currently live in a perpetual blackout without access to electricity. Access to electric power would help these people prosper by alleviating the most basic inequities found in the developing world. To protect the planet, increased access to electricity in developing nations must be provided in a sustainable way by using renewable energy sources such as wind power.
Wind turbines are usually used to extract energy from the wind.
However, wind turbines have disadvantages for developing nations
including high-cost, limited potential for use in low wind speed
areas, and environmental drawbacks. The technical challenge that we
seek to address is to develop a wind power concept that retains the
advantages of wind power, but that is also low-cost, more friendly to
the environment, and usable in regions with low wind speeds where
wind turbines are not economical. Our solution to this challenge is
the Wind Power from Kites concept. In this concept, the up and down
motion of a tethered kite is used to generate electrical energy
using a power conversion mechanism and generator on the ground. Using
kites instead of wind turbines has the potential to give more people
in the developing world access to wind power since kites are
economical in lower speed Class 2 wind regions, whereas wind turbines
are not. The new concept also addresses the environmental problems of visual
pollution, noise pollution, and bird kills associated with wind
turbines.
Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) is collaborating with Heifer International's Overlook Farm to design, build, test, and implement a one-kilowatt Power from Kites demonstrator. The Overlook Farm Learning Center allows the general public to gain new understanding of the causes of poverty in developing nations by providing working demonstrations of sustainable solutions through use of experiential, interactive activities. Undergraduate student project teams at WPI have designed, built, and tested a kite power demonstrator. Future projects will focus on using kite power for off-grid electricity production for the benefit of people living in poverty.
