EU Horizon 2020 Projects AWESCO and REACH: Advancing Airborne Wind Energy Technologies by Systematic Research and Development

Airborne wind energy is the central theme of several projects funded by the European Union within its framework programme Horizon 2020. In this presentation I will highlight two specific projects in which I am involved as coordinator, AWESCO and REACH, and will show how the two parallel actions not only complement each other but create a synergy effect, interleaving also with other parallel actions. AWESCO (“Airborne Wind Energy System Modelling, Control and Optimisationž) is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie doctoral training network, co-financed by the Swiss Federal Government and comprising 14 PhD fellows active at 8 universities and 3 industry partners [1]. The aim of this network, which runs from 2015 to 2018, is to collaboratively address the key challenges of airborne wind energy to support the commercialisation of the technology. The group photo at the top of the page 176 shows the AWESCO PhD researchers together with their supervisors and management staff at the midterm meeting of the project at KU Leuven, on 8 February 2017. The photos below illustrate a training course at the University of Freiburg, on 3ś4 March 2016, during which the researchers had to collaboratively invent and design concepts for high-performance depower of a softkite for pumping cycle operation. This course on Project Management and Strategic Skills was managed by my colleagues Ni Yan and Ricardo Pereira. REACH (“Resource Efficient Automatic Conversion of High-Altitude Windž) is a Fast Track to Innovation Pilot [2]. The project runs from 2015 to 2018 and aims at commercially developing a 100 kW pumping kite power system originally designed and tested at Delft University of Technology. At the centre of the project is the startup company EnevateBV using the trademark KitepowerTM to market the developed system. Although the two projects AWESCO and REACH have different goals they are tightly linked through the participation of the university and the startup on both projects. Parallel actions in H2020 are the projects AMPYXAP3 [3], EK200-AWESOME [4] and NextWind [5], all in the SME Instrument scheme, however, in different phases. The two supported SME’s, Ampyx Power and Enerkite, are also consortium partners in the AWESCO network and in this way linked to the research activities. A very recent Eurostars project is TwingPower [6]. This setup shows how the EU effectively uses different financing instruments to increase the readiness level of the technology and supports the commercialisation.