High altitude wind power generation

Abstract

The concept of High Altitude Wind Power ( HAWP ) is to supply clean energy at low cost and high capacity factor than the Conventional Wind Power ( CWP ) system. This is one of the new technologies deployed for harvesting high altitude wind power using airborne wind turbine -cum electric generator supported by light gas filled blimp/aerostat has been proposed in the project. An airborne wind turbine at high altitude extracts kinetic energy from the high speed streamlined wind using buoyancy provided by the blimp. Using a suitable power electronic converter (PEC), harvested electrical power is transmitted to the ground by using a tether. A Blimp is tethered tothe ground and provides mechanical strength to hold the blimp and the same tether consisting of an electrical conductor is used for transmitting the generated power. In addition, a comparative study between conventional wind energy harvesting system and high altitude wind energy harvesting system shows that high altitude wind power is better in terms of capacity factor, Cost of Electricity (COE), ease of construction and power density than conventional wind power generating system.