Udo Zillmann Secretary General Airborne Wind Europe Avenue de la Renaissance 1
1000 Brussels Belgium
zillmann@airbornewindeurope.org www.airbornewindeurope.org
Do We Still Need Airborne Wind Energy?
Udo ZillmannAirborne Wind Europe The world has started decarbonization in earnest. In
western countries, practically all newly installed electric-ity generation capacelectric-ity is renewable and installation fig-ures exceed even the most optimistic scenarios. Wind and solar are now in many places the cheapest sources of electricity and feed in tariffs are reduced and in many cases abolished as a result. In the latest auctions for off-shore wind, the winners requested no guaranteed feed in tariffs but were happy with earning only the market price. We have reached grip parity.
This is great news for our planet. But what does it mean for Airborne Wind Energy?
The promise of Airborne Wind Energy has long been the ability to produce renewable energy cheaper than coal. For that we now have solar and wind. Is it then worth spending further funds and subsidies on a technology which is in its infancy and has so far only produced small prototypes? With many technical, legal and financial ob-stacles still to overcome? In other words: do we still need Airborne Wind Energy?
The future of the Airborne Wind Energy industry depends on a convincing answer to this question.
The industry will require years and lots of funding before the first large scale products can be mass produced. This can still be a very rewarding investment. But it has to be shown that AWE has clear advantages over conventional wind and solar. Not only over the present wind and solar, but also over future, even more efficient wind and solar.
Potentially even lower costs will not be enough as a single argument.
A lot of challenges remain until we have a 100% renew-able energy system. One is intermittency: what hap-pens when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine? How much storage, grid infrastructure and back-up power does the future energy system need and how much will this cost?
High-Altitude Wind is not only strong but also widely available and steady. With this resource, AWE can pro-duce at higher capacity factors and can propro-duce at times and at places where conventional wind turbines can’t. It is a more reliable and stable electricity source that can solve many problems of the renewable energy system of the future.
There are strong arguments for AWE. But the industry has so far lacked the means to form and communicate these arguments to policy makers, investors and the public. This is the aim of the newly formed industry association Airborne Wind Europe. Our mission is to create a strong environment for the development of AWE, to improve ac-cess to funding and to enhance business opportunities for our members. To achieve this, we engage with Euro-pean and national policy makers, we help shape research agendas and we work on legal and technical guidelines as well as the education of the public. Airborne Wind Europe is a strong voice with a clear message: We need Airborne Wind Energy for our future.
