2013 Berlin Conference Registration Open!

The Annual Airborne Wind Energy Conference is going to be held in Berlin this year on the 10th and 11th of September. Registration is now open, all the details are here: http://www.awec2013.de/tickets.htm . A great thing the organisers have done this year is subsidise the tickets for students so the student price is only 24 Euros!

As a reviewer for a couple of the papers I know the technical submissions are better than ever and the papers are going to be published by Springer in what will be the first book of Airborne Wind Energy papers.

A "spectacular event" is going to be held on the 9th for those there early, lets hope this is a live demo of some kite power equipment...

EMPA delivers the goods

Also recently in the news, EMPA  the Swiss material science research institution that brought you Tensairity has been collaborating with SwissKitePower on stiff lightweight kites that look to have a Tensairity stiffening member that forms the leading edge. Less bridling means less drag and a stiff leading edge means you can load the wing up more, the wing is pretty high aspect and judging by the speed it gets up to in the video below, the lift/drag ratio is pretty good, and their test site is stunning! Can't wait to see more from these guys, the EMPA spinout is called TwingTec.

Airborne Wind Energy on TV and at TED

Great exposure for Ampyx, SwissKitePower

After a protracted blog-silence whilst I finished my phd thesis (now submitted!) I'll now be updating the blog again whenever there is news to report. 2011 should be an exciting year for Airborne Wind Energy, with more new startups, established energy and engineering firms moving in and some exciting projects in the pipeline.

To start things off, here's a video featuring Swisskitepower which is to my knowledge the first feature on Airborne wind energy on French TV, congrats to Corey and the team for the publicity!

Also Bas Lansdorp from Ampyx Power had a slot at TED Amsterdam, it's a brief talk but has some nice shots of the kiteplane and probably the best shots of their winch system to date. They seem to be making good progress and Bas is a great ambassador for the technology.