Abstract
The available wind power resource worldwide at altitudes between 500 and 12,000 m above ground is assessed for the first time. Twenty-eight years of wind data from the reanalyses by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction and the Department of Energy are analyzed and interpolated to study geographical distributions and persistency of winds at all altitudes. Furthermore, intermittency issues and global climate effects of large-scale extraction of energy from high-altitude winds are investigated.
Highlights
Winds generally increase with height above the ground [1]
Because wind direction affects safety and control issues of high-altitude wind devices, but not wind energy availability, in this paper we focus on wind speed and wind power density
We assessed for the first time the available wind power resource worldwide at altitudes between 500 and 12,000 m
Summary
Winds generally increase with height above the ground [1]. The jet streams, meandering currents of fast winds generally located between 7 and 16 km of altitude [2], have wind speeds that are an order of magnitude faster than those near the ground. In the design proposed by Sky Windpower (Figure 1b), four rotors are mounted on an airframe, tethered to the ground via insulated aluminum conductors wound with Kevlar-type cords [3]. The rotors both provide lift and power electric generation. Multiple high altitude wind turbines (rotorcrafts) could be arranged in arrays for large scale electricity generation. For this approach, the aim would be to capture energy closer to the jet streams. Generators by Sky Windpower, tethered rotorcrafts aimed at altitudes of 10,000 m (picture courtesy of Ben Shepard)
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