The objective of the Fast Track to Innovation (FTI) project REACH (Resource Efficient Automatic Conversion of High-Altitude Wind) was the commercial development of an airborne wind energy (AWE) system that is suitable to supply remote communities or off-grid areas with reliable and clean electricity. It was the aim to be cost-competitive compared to existing state-of-the-art technologies such as diesel generator sets. The project started in December 2015 and ended in August 2019. The consortium was coordinated by Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), was lead by the system integrator Kitepower (Enevate), and comprised the three industry partners Dromec, Maxon Motor and Genetrix as component suppliers.
The 20 kW kite power system of TU Delft was operated since 2010 as a platform for research and development and for demonstration purposes. The system was equipped with kites of 14 and 25 m2 wing surface area. With the start of the REACH project, this platform was transferred to the university spin-off company Kitepower to jointly develop a commercial 100 kW kite airborne wind energy system that can be equipped with kites of wing sizes up to 100 m2. Industry partner Dromec was responsible for the development and manufacturing of the ground station, Maxon Motor for the development of the kite control unit (KCU) and Genetrix for the development and manufacturing of the kites. Kitepower coordinated the different development activities and integrated the delivered system components with a control software that was developed inhouse. In addition, a simple user interface was developed to link the advanced software of the kite power system to an easy-to-use “one button solution”, which makes the system easy to operate. Starting from the 20 kW level, all system components were successfully scaled up to the power output of the commercial unit. An important aspect of the development was operational safety and reliability, particularly during operation of the system. For this purpose, a strict safety protocol and zoning concept has been developed for the operation of the system. At the end of the project, the commercial kite power system was not yet ready for market introduction, although the REACH consortium has made vast strides to reach the required technology readiness level. Further system testing will be conducted to ensure safe and continuous system operation. First kite power systems will be sold once sustained autonomous flight has been shown consistently. At the end of the project, two pilot locations in the Netherlands were established and launching customers confirmed three units being placed in the Caribbean as well. Further 6 units are in negotiation of which four are close to a deal. These will be followed by 50 more from in total 6 system integrators and island utilities.
The research activities parallel to this project have resulted in numerous publications which have been disseminated through a variety of methods, including public presentations, conference settings, scientific journal articles, social media posts and technical and scientific publications about the 100 kW kite power system by external authors. This has also led to collaboration with industry peers and the foundation of the industry association Airborne Wind Europe, who furthers collaboration and regulatory work in Europe. The FTI project REACH has demonstrated the potential of AWE systems to generate clean electricity. Along the execution of the project, there have been significant technical improvements to the commercial kite power system, reaching continuous automatic operation times of more than 10 hours, as opposed to operation which was only continuous in the time scale of only few hours in the early stages of the project. With several AWE companies producing larger scale testing systems, it shows that the field of AWE is rapidly growing and gaining momentum, and is on track to reach commercial production in the near future.
