1.媒体来源:
MIT News
2.完整新闻标题/内文:
内文英文所以简单描述一下
基本上就是汽球型的风力发电机组
因为高空的风力比低处更强而且稳定, 所以用汽球方式可以拉到更高空
建置成本也远低于现行的塔式, 还可以方便移动到不同地点.
当作灾区或是军用临时的电力系统也很有用
还可以加挂WiFi在上面提供更大涵盖范围
目前的系统就一颗气球+拖车当作地面站这样.
这里还有影片
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kldA4nWANA8
High-flying turbine produces more power
MIT alumni develop airborne wind turbine that floats 1,000 feet aloft to
capture stronger, steadier winds.
Rob Matheson | MIT News Office
May 15, 2014
For Altaeros Energies, a startup launched out of MIT, the sky’s the limit
when it comes to wind power.
Founded by alumni Ben Glass ’08, SM ’10 and Adam Rein MBA ’10, Altaeros
has developed the world’s first commercial airborne wind turbine, which uses
a helium-filled shell to float as high as a skyscraper and capture the
stronger, steadier winds available at that altitude.
Proven to produce double the energy of similarly sized tower-mounted
turbines, the system, called Buoyant Air Turbine (or BAT), is now readying
for commercial deployment in rural Alaska.
Surrounded by a circular, 35-foot-long inflatable shell made of the same
heavy-duty fabric used in blimps and sails, the BAT hovers 1,000 to 2,000
feet above ground, where winds blow five to eight times stronger, as well as
more consistently, than winds at tower level (roughly 100 to 300 feet).
Three tethers connect the BAT to a rotating ground station, automatically
adjusting its altitude to obtain the strongest possible winds. Power
generated by the turbine travels down one of the tethers to the ground
station before being passed along to microgrids.
“Think of it as a reverse crane,” says Glass, who invented the core BAT
technology. “A crane has a nice stationary component, and an upper platform
that rotates in order to suspend things down. We’re doing the same thing,
but suspending things up.”
Next year, the BAT will test its ability to power microgrids at a site south
of Fairbanks, Alaska, in an 18-month trial funded by the Alaska Energy
Authority. People in rural Alaska rely on gas and diesel generators for
power, paying upward of $1 per kilowatt-hour for electricity. The BAT, which
has a capacity of 30 kilowatts, aims to drop that kilowatt-hour cost down to
roughly 18 cents, the co-founders say.
But despite its efficiency, the BAT is not designed to replace conventional
tower-mounted turbines, Rein says. Instead, its purpose is to bring wind
power to remote, off-grid areas where towers aren’t practically or
economically feasible.
Conventional turbine construction, for instance, requires tons of concrete
and the use of cranes, which can be difficult to maneuver around certain
sites. The modular BAT, Rein says, packs into two midsize shipping containers
for transport “and can just be inflated out and self-lift into the air for
installation.”
Target sites include areas where large diesel generators provide power —
such as military bases and industrial sites — as well as island and rural
communities in Hawaii, northern Canada, India, Brazil, and parts of
Australia. The BAT could also provide power to places blacked out by natural
disasters, as well as at amusement parks, festivals, and sports venues.
“It’s really about expanding wind energy to all those places on the fringes
where it doesn’t really work today, and expanding the amount of wind power
that’s able to be deployed globally,” Rein says.
Aerostat innovation
Much of the BAT’s innovation lies in its complete autonomy, Glass says. Such
aerostats usually require full-time ground crews to deploy, land, and adjust.
But the BAT automatically adjusts to optimal wind speeds and self-docks in
case of emergencies, eliminating the need for manual labor.
“When winds are low, typically we want to go as high as possible — because,
generally speaking, the higher you are, the stronger the winds,” Glass
explains. “But if winds get too high, above the maximum [capacity] of the
turbine, there’s no reason to operate in those very strong winds, so we can
bring it down, where it operates at rated power, but is not subject to very
strong winds.”
To guide its positioning, the BAT is equipped with anemometers installed in
the airborne unit and ground station. When the anemometers detect optimal
wind speed, a custom algorithm adjusts the system’s tethers to extend or
contract, while the base rotates into the wind. In rare instances, when wind
conditions are optimal on the ground, the system will self-dock, but continue
rotating.
Designed to handle winds of more than 100 mph, the system is unaffected by
rain or snow. However, should the weather get too inclement, or should a
tether break loose, the BAT’s secondary grounding tether — which protects
the system’s electronics from lightning strikes — will self-dock.
Because the BAT is an advanced aerostat platform, Glass says, customers can
use it to lift additional “payloads,” such as weather monitoring and
surveillance equipment.
But perhaps the most logical added “payload,” Glass says, is Wi-Fi
technology: “If you have a remote village, for instance,” he says, “you
can put a Wi-Fi unit up, outside the village, and you’re much higher than you
’d get with a traditional tower. That would allow you to cover six to eight
times the area you would with a tower.”
Prototype to product
Glass first conceived of the BAT while working at MIT toward his master’s
degree in aeronautics and astronautics. Harboring an interest in wind turbine
design, and knowing that traditional towers could never reach high-altitude
winds, he designed the BAT in his free time, receiving technical guidance
from Institute Professor Sheila Widnall and other faculty.
Soon, he’d bring his concept to 15.366 (Energy Ventures), a class at the MIT
Sloan School of Management where engineering, policy, and business students
build startups around clean tech ideas. At the time, Rein, who had done
independent research on clean energy, was an MBA student and teacher’s
assistant for the class who helped Glass flesh out an initial business model.
The duo — along with Harvard University grad student Alain Goubau and
investor Alex Rohde, then an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow — soon formed Altaeros.
They solicited advice from seasoned entrepreneurs at MIT’s Venture Mentoring
Service (VMS) — “our first advisory board,” Rein says — who steered the
startup toward rapid prototyping by using low-cost, off-the-shelf materials.
For their first power-producing prototype, they bought a small, reliable
wind-turbine rotor, “and cut off some metal in the back that was dead weight
and built a composite nacelle to hold our custom electronics and control
systems,” Rein says.
In 2012, Altaeros, after just two years of refining, proved the BAT’s
efficiency at 300 feet above ground at a former Air Force base in Maine,
where the company still assembles and tests the system. They did so again
last August, at 500 feet in 45-mph winds.
Altaeros remains headquartered in cleantech incubator Greentown Labs (which
Rein co-founded), in Somerville, Mass. — where its first rotor is proudly
displayed near the entrance, along with enlarged photos of the first trial
run. At Greentown, employees engage in computer modeling and design, build
electronics and circuit boards, develop algorithms, and test winches and
cables.
Looking back, Glass credits his undergraduate years on MIT’s Solar
Electrical Vehicle Team — a student organization that builds and races solar
cars for competition — with giving him the experience and motivation to
bring the BAT from concept to reality.
“Just being able to see a project from design and analysis stage through
building, testing, and operating was valuable,” he says. “It’s also
something that helped in leading a technical team at Altaeros, to essentially
do the same thing on a bigger scale.”
For now, Altaeros is focused on finalizing the commercial product for Alaska
and, eventually, deploying the technology worldwide. “To take the system
from concept to actual prototype has been exciting,” Glass says. “But the
next step is making the prototype a commercial product and really seeing its
real-world performance.”
3.新闻连结:
http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/high-flying-turbine-produces-more-power-0515