KITE GEN STEM MASSIMO IPPOLITO KITE GEN RESEARCH SRL Via 25 APRILE n°8 CAP 10023 Città CHIERI Prov.TO 011 941 57 45 [email protected] www.kitegen.com SEQUOIA AUTOMATION SRL Via 25 APRILE n°8 CAP 10023 Città CHIERI Prov.TO 011 941 57 45 [email protected] www.sequoiaonline.com MARCELLO CORONGIU SEQUOIA AUTOMATION 011 941 57 45 [email protected] MARCELLO CORONGIU SEQUOIA AUTOMATION 011 941 57 45 [email protected] KiteGen STEM is an on ground energy generator that transform high altitude wind power into electricity. KiteGen® Stem is a fully automatic, light, cost-effective, technologically advanced high altitude generator that aims at adding a new perspective to the ways humanity produces the energy necessary to sustain itself. The KiteGen® Stem is a new renewable energy technology, which also introduces a new renewable energy field. After having tested a small (40 kW) prototype in 2006, the pre-industrial 3MW prototype is currently under completion and first flight and generation tests are expected in a few months. Usually when we think about renewable energies we think mainly about solar PV technologies, traditional wind farms or hydroelectric plants. From tomorrow we will include energy production technologies based on an, up to now, unexploited resource: the altitude winds. The issues related with energy , the direct link between energy and our life-style, the changes that energy has brought to our lives in the last 100 years and the perspectives for the next 100, the challenges of sustainability etc.. are all fundamental aspects of the same subject. KiteGen® wants to give a sound answer to these challenges by providing a renewable technology that will produce electricity at a cost competitive with the traditional sources based on fossil fuels, thus at a so called “grid parity”. The KiteGen® Stem is in fact an industrial robot that can automatically manage the flight of a large kite. The kite flies at an average height between 1000 and 2000 meters, its trajectory loop is shaped as an "8" and while raising up in height , the kite pulls the two ropes that, at the heart of the machine, activate alternators which produce the electricity (active phase). When the maximum height is reached the automatically controlled kite performs the side-slip manoeuvre (patented) that rewinds the two ropes (passive phase) with a minimum expenditure of energy. Then the cycle restarts. The kite used up to now are derived from the "kite-surf" used by sportsmen, but it will soon become an hyper-technological wing, which will increase its efficiency even more . A KiteGen® STEM is expected to work, on a good site, up to 5800 hours per year at nominal power, so that a farm of 25 KiteGen® Stems can alone provide the energy demands of approx. 70.000 households The ground structure is two orders of magnitude lighter than a same size wind turbine (12 ton. vs. 1500). The structure is shaped as an Igloo of 12 m. diameter and 7 m. high. At the top there is a “Stem”, 21 m. long (a big lamppost) from where lines go up in the sky. The structure is in steel, the stem and the drums that host ropes are in carbon fiber, the ropes are in HM polyethylene and the kite is in composite material. Materials are more or less the same of a wind turbine. KiteGen® Research holds more than 20 patents worldwide registered on various aspect of the technology, it has been awarded several prizes in the field of technological innovation (among others the ENI Awards) and it aims at an imminent industrialization of the technology. The TUV certification of the first 3MW prototype is under way. The KiteGen® Stem can produce clean renewable Energy at a cost competitive with that of traditional fossil sources. It has little or no environmental impact compared to the already limited impact of other renewable sources. It can exploit a huge energy field (estimated in 3600 TW), widely distributed worldwide, for the production of relevant quantity of energy from renewable source and at low cost, moreover with a limited territorial need for its operation. Humanity urgently needs a way of lowering its dependence from fossil fuels: their scarcity and their impact on the environment are limiting our very existence on this planet. Another renewable energy field (the high altitude winds) and a new technology to harness it (KiteGen®) are two fundamental steps towards the goal of a Sustainable Society. .