Turbine Wind Power Generating Blimp Video Released

 Wind Power

Altaeros Energies released a video this week of its prototype airborne wind turbine during its first test run in Maine earlier this year. The donut-shaped blimp has a spinning fan at its center, and it's tethered to a base station by cables that carry electricity from the blimp to the local grid.

Altaeros Energies, a wind power company formed out of MIT, has been able to generate high altitude power from a prototype of its floating wind turbine in a test in Maine.

The wind energy startup released a video this week of its prototype airborne wind turbine during its first test run in Maine earlier this year. The donut-shaped blimp has a spinning fan at its center, and it's tethered to a base station by cables that carry electricity from the blimp to the local grid.

The 10-metre wide, helium-filled inflatable turbine, called the Airborne Wind Turbine (AWT), was sent up into the sky more than 100 metres above ground, where stronger winds can be found. The prototype was also used to lift the top-selling Southwest Skystream turbine, which was able to produce more than twice the power at high altitude that was generated at conventional tower height.

Altaeros aims to harness the stronger winds found more than 300 metres in the air with the use of helium-filled inflatable devices that can be quickly installed or taken down. In the short term, Altaeros wants to provide an alternative to diesel generators, but in the long term it wants to scale up the technology to reduce costs in the offshore wind market.

The video also shows how the blimp can be automatically deployed and brought down from its launcher, which is a modified version of launchers used for industrial blimps.

SOURCE  CNET

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