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Airborne Wind Energy Airborne Wind Energy Technology Review and Feasibility in Germany Seminar Paper for Sustainable Energy Systems Faculty of Mechanical Engineering Technical University of Munich Supervisors Johne, Philipp Hetterich, Barbara Chair of Energy Systems Authors Drexler, Christoph Hofmann, Alexander Kiss, Balínt Handed in Munich, 05. July 2017 Abstract As a new generation of wind energy systems, AWESs (Airborne Wind Energy Systems) have the potential to grow competitive to their conventional ancestors within the upcoming decade. An overview of the state of the art of AWESs has been presented. For the feasibility ana- lysis of AWESs in Germany, a detailed wind analysis of a three dimensional grid of 80 data points above Germany has been conducted. Long-term NWM (Numerical Weather Model) data over 38 years provided by the NCEP (National Centers for Environmental Prediction) has been analysed to determine the wind probability distributions at elevated altitudes. Besides other data, these distributions and available performance curves have been used to calcu- late the evaluation criteria AEEY (Annual Electrical Energy Yield) and CF (Capacity Factor). Together with the additional criteria LCOE (Levelised Costs of Electricity), MP (Material Per- formance), and REP (Rated Electrical Power) a quantitative cost utility analysis according to Zangemeister has been conducted. This analysis has shown that AWESs look promising and could become an attractive alternative to traditional wind energy systems. 2 Table of Contents 1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 5 1.1 Initial situation and motivation.......................................................................5 1.2 Objective ...................................................................................................6 1.3 Approach...................................................................................................7 2 Fundamentals ................................................................................................... 8 2.1 Wind modelling...........................................................................................8 2.1.1 Low altitude wind..............................................................................8 2.1.2 High altitude wind .............................................................................9 2.2 Airborne Wind Energy Systems .................................................................... 12 2.2.1 Classification ................................................................................... 12 2.2.2 Maximum theoretical yield of AWE...................................................... 13 3 State of the art................................................................................................... 15 4 Wind conditions in Germany and data .................................................................. 21 5 Cost Utility Analysis............................................................................................ 25 5.1 Zangemeister Analysis ................................................................................ 25 5.2 Criteria definition ........................................................................................ 26 5.2.1 LCOE ............................................................................................. 26 5.2.2 CF.................................................................................................. 26 5.2.3 AEEY.............................................................................................. 26 5.2.4 MP ................................................................................................. 27 5.2.5 REP................................................................................................ 27 6 Conclusion and outlook....................................................................................... 31 Appendices............................................................................................................ 34 A Typical function values ........................................................................................ 35 B Interpolated wind distributions of investigated systems ........................................... 36 C Performance curves of investigated prototypes ...................................................... 40 D Complete overview of existing AWES ................................................................... 43 3 Acronyms A AEEY - Annual Electrical Energy Yield.................................................. 2, 3, 27, 31, 32 AEP - Annual Energy Production........................................................................ 3, 26 API - Application Programming Interface................................................................... 3 AWES - Airborne Wind Energy System 2, 3, 6–9, 12, 13, 15, 17, 22, 23, 25, 27–29, 31–33 C CCGT - Combined Cycle Gas Turbine...................................................................... 3 CF - Capacity Factor........................................................................... 2, 3, 26, 27, 31 CFD - Computaional Fluid Dynamic.................................................................... 3, 19 CRF - Capital Recovery Factor........................................................................... 3, 26 CUA - Cost Utility Analysis ........................................................................... 3, 27, 29 D DPKVHLC - Drag Power Kite with Very High Lift Coefficient.............................. 3, 19, 29 I ICC - Initial Capital Costs........................................................................ 3, 26, 28, 32 L LCOE - Levelised Costs of Electricity........................................ 2, 3, 5, 6, 20, 26, 29, 31 M MP - Material Performance.................................................................. 2, 3, 27, 29, 31 N NCEP - National Centers for Environmental Prediction ...................................... 2, 3, 11 NWM - Numerical Weather Model................................................................ 2, 3, 9, 11 O OMC - Operation and Maintanance Cost............................................................. 3, 26 R RA - Ranalyses ..................................................................................... 3, 21–23, 27 REP - Rated Electrical Power.................................................... 2, 3, 26, 27, 29, 31, 32 RRE - Resulting Rated Energy ................................................................................ 3 4 1. Introduction 1.1. Initial situation and motivation First, like solar, wind power is one of the few renewable energy resources that is in principle large enough to satisfy all of humanity’s energy needs. Ahrens et al. 2013, p. 3 Energy production from wind is already competitive to conventional power plants burning fossil fuels or nuclear power production. Figure 1 shows the LCOE for selected energy pro- duction methods. At perfect onshore locations modern wind energy systems are able to pro- duce electricity at a lower price than black coal power plants. Average onshore wind energy systems have LCOE between 0.045 and 0.107 e/kWh. Despite their in average higher util- ization rate those of offshore wind energy systems are considerably higher ranging between 0.119 and 0.194 e/kWh due to high investment costs. In comparison, brown coal power plants have the lowest LCOE ranging between 0.038 and 0.053 e/kWh (Kost et al. 2013). Figure 1 LCOE comparison of different technologies (Data from Kost et al. 2013) In 2016 renewable energy made up for over 30% of Germany’s gross electricity consumption whereof 12.4 % were produced from wind energy alone (Durstewitz et al. 2017). At the end of 2016 global installed wind power capacity hit 486,749 MW. Of the total 161,330 MW installed in Europe, around 50,018 MW were installed in Germany alone (GWEC, 2017). Typical total investment costs of wind energy systems in Germany range between 1.39 and 1.71 e/kWh depending on hub high, performance class and wind conditions Wallasch et al. 2013. 5 The main investment costs have a large share of the total investment costs with up to 78%. They refer to transport, installation and mainly the wind energy system itself which consists of tower, nacelle and rotor. Additional investment costs include the foundation, the grid con- nection, the infrastructure as well as planning and design. The foundation alone aggregates to about 4% of the total investment costs (Wallasch et al. 2013). Collectively the investment costs required for the material of the main components are re- sponsible for the majority of the total investment costs and thereby for the LCOE of conven- tional wind power. The carbon dioxide footprint of conventional wind power ranges between 30-45 gCO2 / kWh. 90 % is due to the high amount of material cost (Wagner et al. 2007). Furthermore conventional wind energy systems are limited to special hub heights of up to 140 m maximum and not able to harvest winds of higher altitudes which are typically stronger and more consistent. This is one reason for limitations regarding the utilisation rate and the necessity of energy storage as well as restrictions regarding location selection and grid ex- pansion. A new approach to create electricity from wind energy are the so called AWESs. In contrast to conventional ground based and towered wind turbines AWESs are flying freely in the air using soft kites or reinforced wings. AWESs might have the potential to reach higher altitudes, harvesting more
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