Kites are no longer just kids' toys gliding in the wind. By 2025, they will provide power to an entire region of Scotland.
A 500-kilowatt system of kite-supported power stations is soon to be installed at the Ministry of Defense's West Freugh Range, near the town of Stranraer.
Even Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, has called kite power the "magic solution." Kite power systems, or kytoons—hybrids of kites and balloons—make use of the jet stream energy circling Earth at around 20,000 feet. The kites work simultaneously, one going up, the other going down, and hence generate constant electricity. [...]
Securing kites is much cheaper than wind turbines, for example, because the kites float themselves up to 450 meters in a figure-eight, meanwhile pulling a tether attached to a turbine in order to generate electricity. "Our systems basically float and the cost of the mooring is much lower than a wind turbine," Ainsworth.
The kites will be about 40 meters wide and able to generate two to three megawatts of electricity each—which is about the same as what a typical 100m turbine can do. Moreover, Scotland is a fairly windy country, where eight of the top 10 windiest spots in the United Kingdom are located, according to the Met Office. Ainsworth suspects that fewer than 10 days a year will the kytoons not generate energy, given how seldom the region experiences a lack of wind. When that does happen, a fan will keep the kites up until the wind comes back.
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