Interference with aviation
What is the risk of collision with airplanes?
A Kite Gen power plant must obtain from the competent authorities which is usually the national administration for civil aviation and they need flight restrictions on the airspace above, where airplanes and any other kind of airborne vehicles should not be allowed to enter. The restricted areas have internationally uniformed rules and are already granted for other kinds of civil installations like nuclear power plants, oil refineries, and dams that produce electricity from water for instance. A typical Prohibited Area, where no flight is allowed and the risk tends to zero, has an altitude above the ground of around 5 000 ft.
A Kite Gen power plant must obtain from the competent authorities which is usually the national administration for civil aviation and they need flight restrictions on the airspace above, where airplanes and any other kind of airborne vehicles should not be allowed to enter. The restricted areas have internationally uniformed rules and are already granted for other kinds of civil installations like nuclear power plants, oil refineries, and dams that produce electricity from water for instance. A typical Prohibited Area, where no flight is allowed and the risk tends to zero, has an altitude above the ground of around 5 000 ft.
Will kites interfere with passenger airlines?
The altitude of the floating wind turbine goes 1000 feet in the air
Airborne wind generators would create an invisible flight hazard over a large range if not lit and marked both on the tether and device. The tether must be strong enough to withstand substantial tension, so it’s also strong enough to seriously damage aircraft. Generally this will require that the only appropriate areas for this technology are those with no near-earth flying, which means very sparsely populated areas, and likely offshore. This in turn generally means that there are no transmission lines of sufficient capacity in the area and this must be factored into the economic costs. Aviation authorities will require lighting and marking of at least the devices themselves and likely the tethers, and these requirements have often been ignored during design and engineering of proposed approaches with the hope that they will be waived. While some discussions with the US FAA have discussed the possibility of flying tethers without marking or lights, the FAA has not agreed to this, and likely would not permit unmarked tethers in many categories of these devices. In most jurisdictions, this will also require additional insurance which is hard to quantify at present, but will likely be much more expensive than for current wind generation approaches. The ranges will become no-fly zones potentially up to 9 kilometres or the altitudes of passenger airlines, which likely requires regulation changes which in turn requires legal costs and probably lobbying costs. Radar blimps have restriction zones that were approved as a matter of national security; it’s difficult to assert that the same political pressure would be brought to bear to support airborne wind generation.
The altitude of the floating wind turbine goes 1000 feet in the air
Airborne wind generators would create an invisible flight hazard over a large range if not lit and marked both on the tether and device. The tether must be strong enough to withstand substantial tension, so it’s also strong enough to seriously damage aircraft. Generally this will require that the only appropriate areas for this technology are those with no near-earth flying, which means very sparsely populated areas, and likely offshore. This in turn generally means that there are no transmission lines of sufficient capacity in the area and this must be factored into the economic costs. Aviation authorities will require lighting and marking of at least the devices themselves and likely the tethers, and these requirements have often been ignored during design and engineering of proposed approaches with the hope that they will be waived. While some discussions with the US FAA have discussed the possibility of flying tethers without marking or lights, the FAA has not agreed to this, and likely would not permit unmarked tethers in many categories of these devices. In most jurisdictions, this will also require additional insurance which is hard to quantify at present, but will likely be much more expensive than for current wind generation approaches. The ranges will become no-fly zones potentially up to 9 kilometres or the altitudes of passenger airlines, which likely requires regulation changes which in turn requires legal costs and probably lobbying costs. Radar blimps have restriction zones that were approved as a matter of national security; it’s difficult to assert that the same political pressure would be brought to bear to support airborne wind generation.