Deep Green

The kite consists of a wing, which is provided with a turbine and a generator, attached to the seabed by a tether. Hydrodynamic forces on the kite caused by the current velocity makes the kite to move and by a control system it is taken in a certain trajectory. The speed of the kite determines the flow velocity to the turbine, which is increased by about ten times the current speed. The electricity is transmitted onshore through a power cable inside the tether. With a wing span of 12 m the kite is designed to run at a speed of 16 m/s at a current velocity around 1.6 m/s. Animated movie.

Since the turbine uses high water velocities giving sufficient rpm into the generator no gearbox is needed. The relatively small and low anchorage system does not include massive fundaments as needed for towers or other heavy installations offshore. Thus the total size and overall cost of the entire kite assembly is very attractive.

The kite has an automatic steering system to follow a specific trajectory. The system also optimizes the trajectory for maximum energy conversion. For safety reasons several conditions are constantly supervised by the system, e.g. maximum and minimum depth of the trajectory, system faults, wave and turbulence, large objects moving too close etc.

The wing and tether can be adapted to various current velocities and depths to cover a high range of different site conditions.

Comparison