This 330kW battery generator uses a giant kite to charge itself
If you had to read that headline twice, let me assure you: I had to read Kitepower’s website a few times myself. The concept of harnessing the wind for power is positively ancient, but it usually comes in the form of a fixed wind-catching surface rotating a driven mass (aka a windmill). Kitepower is doing something very different. The best way to describe it is probably a “wind winch.”
The Kitepower Hawk — which is now available to order — combines a few key elements. The first is a 400kWh battery pack inside a shipping container, which comprises the storage and distribution portion of the system. That battery array can pump out up to 330kW of power at peak and is designed to run for around 10 hours under typical operating conditions. The second and third major elements are a reel system (think of it as a winch), which releases and retracts a tether, and the aforementioned kite.
The kite is attached to the end of the tether, and as the wind pulls the kite into the air (in an elaborate flight pattern designed to maximize the duration of the “pull” cycle), that pulling force unwinds the reel. The resultant mechanical force, very much like the spinning of a wind turbine, is then harvested as electricity. Finally, the system then uses electricity to pull the kite back in, but in a straight-line trajectory that uses far less power than the pulling force generates.
The key figures claimed here are that the Hawk, at maximum efficiency, generates 40kW of electricity when in the unwind cycle. When the kite is being wound back in, it consumes 10kW of electricity. The system spends roughly 80% of its time in the unwind cycle and just 20% reeling the kite back in, and Kitepower claims the system, therefore, produces the net equivalent of 30kW of continuous power when in operation.
According to Kitepower, the amount of wind necessary to power this whole thing at peak efficiency is lower than you’d expect — just over 22 mph (10 m/s). That said, wind speeds over 30 mph or so start to have a negative effect on system efficiency; 20-30 mph is the “sweet spot.”
The advantages to a system like this may not be totally obvious at first when compared to a traditional wind turbine or solar generator. Isn’t this a whole lot of mechanical complexity and uncertainty to bring into the business of power generation?
Kitepower’s appeal, though, is to the kind of environments where costly and complex wind turbines and solar may be difficult to deploy, or cost-prohibitive. Island communities, remote worksites, and seasonal agriculture are all potential areas where the Hawk could be a game-changer, replacing dirty, noisy diesel generators that must be constantly refueled.
Because of the flight pattern of the kite, you’ll need to be confident that the airspace around the Hawk system will be clear during operation. And the level of wind is obviously going to be a big factor here. But I think the coolest thing about this system is that the portion actually harvesting the energy — the kite — is almost certainly the cheapest of the major components. It’s literally just a fiberglass skeleton parachute, and in the event you lose one to a storm or some other unforeseen event, you can just attach a new kite. I doubt they’re cheap as an objective cost to an individual, but they’re probably way cheaper than replacing an entire wind turbine that gets knocked out in a hurricane.
The other big advantage here is mobility — Kitepower’s system can be deployed anywhere you can drop a shipping container, and that opens a whole host of locations up that would otherwise be cost-prohibitive for wind power generation. Kitepower also isn’t the only name in the game, with German startup EnerKite exploring a similar solution.
For more, check out Kitepower’s release. (News via Electrive)
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Paris’ bike-share system, Vélib has long been considered one of the shining success stories of urban micromobility. With a massive fleet of over 20,000 pedal and electric-assist bicycles around Paris, the service has helped millions of residents and tourists get around the City of Light without needing a car or scooter. But lately, a growing problem is threatening to knock the wheels off this urban mobility marvel: theft and joyriding.
According to city officials and the service operator, more than 600 Vélib bikes are now going missing every single week. That’s over 30 bikes a day simply vanishing from the system – some stolen outright, others taken on “joy rides” and never returned.
“At the moment we’re missing 3,000 bikes,” explained Sylvain Raifaud, head of the Agemob company that currently operates the Velib system. That’s nearly 15% of over 20,000 Vélib bikes across Paris.
The sticky-fingered culprits aren’t necessarily professional thieves or organized crime rings. Instead, they’re often regular users who treat the shared bikes like disposable toys.
The city estimates that many people have figured out how to pry the bikes out of the system’s parking docks, unlocking one for a casual cruise and then ditching it somewhere far from a docking station.
Once pried free, the bikes are technically usable for the next 24 hours until their automatic locking feature kicks in. At that point, the bikes are often simply abandoned. Some end up in alleyways. Others get tossed in rivers. A few just disappear completely.
And since the bikes are intended to be parked at their many docking stations around the city, they don’t have GPS chips, further complicating recovery of “liberated” bikes.
The issue started small but has grown into more than an inconvenience – it’s beginning to undermine the entire purpose of the service. With bikes going missing at such a high rate, many Vélib docking stations are left empty, especially during rush hours.
Riders looking for a quick commute or a convenient hop across town are increasingly finding themselves without available bikes, or having to walk long distances to find a functioning one.
That kind of unreliability chips away at user confidence and threatens to drive potential riders back into cars, cabs, or other less sustainable forms of transport at a time when Paris has already made great strides to dramatically reduce car usage in the city.
The losses are financially painful, too. Replacing stolen or vandalized bikes isn’t cheap, and the resources spent on tracking down missing equipment or reinforcing anti-theft measures are stretching thin. Vélib has faced theft and vandalism issues before, especially during its early years, but this latest surge has officials sounding the alarm with renewed urgency.
Officials acknowledge that there’s no easy fix. Paris, like many cities with bike-share systems, walks a fine line between accessibility and accountability. Part of what makes Vélib so successful is its ease of use and widespread availability. But those same features make it vulnerable to misuse – especially when enforcement is limited and the consequences for abuse are minimal.
The timing of the problem is especially unfortunate. In recent years, Paris has seen impressive results in reducing car traffic, expanding bike lanes, and promoting cycling as a key part of its sustainable transport strategy. Vélib is a cornerstone of that plan. But if the system becomes too unreliable, it risks losing the very people it was designed to serve.
Meanwhile, as Parisians increasingly find themselves staring at empty docks, the challenge for the city and Vélib will be to restore confidence in the system without making it harder to use. That means striking the right balance between freedom and responsibility, between open access and protection against abuse.
In a city where cycling is supposed to be the future of mobility, losing thousands of bikes to joyriders and sticky fingers isn’t just frustrating; it’s unsustainable.
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