The craft generates its own electricity to remain airborne and transmits the power it creates to ground level systems through a cable. A commercial design would be monitored via GPS technology to maintain an advantageous position and would be brought to earth once a month or so to perform maintenance.
The design overcomes the greatest flaw in ground-based turbines – the irregularity of the wind. At a proposed altitude of around 5km, the flying electricity generator (FEG) would have a constant supply of strong winds to drive its turbine.
Wind tunnel testing has indicated that around 600 FEGs would supply power equal to a powerful nuclear reactor, with an estimated cost per kilowatt hour around half that of coal.
“For FEGs, the winds are much more persistent than on ground-based machines,” Roberts said. “That’s part of the benefit: more power and greater concentration.”
Roberts has taken his invention to the US, teaming with San Diego company Sky WindPower to work on commercialising his idea. Although permission has been gained from the US Federal Aviation Administration to test a prototype in the California desert, $US3 million is still required to build a full-scale device.
Supporters of the FEG have pointed to the vast renewable reserves of energy just waiting to be tapped, a “farm” of the crafts requiring only a restricted air space with favourable currents, and minimal ground space. Should the technology take off, fleets of FEGs could potentially produce vast amounts of clean, renewable energy.
