 | This article's factual accuracy may be compromised due to out-of-date information.(May 2016) |
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| Founded | 2001 |
|---|---|
| Founders |
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| Headquarters | , Germany |
Number of employees | 150 (2021) |
| Website | https://skysails-group.com |
SkySails Group GmbH is a Hamburg-based company that sells kite rigs to propel cargo ships, large yachts and fishing vessels by wind energy as well as airborne wind energy systems for electricity production from high-altitude winds.
SkySails Group GmbH is a successor company to SkySails GmbH, which was founded in 2001 by Stephan Wrage and Thomas Meyer in Hamburg.
The company, while technically successful at cutting shipping costs and carbon emissions, has faced economic difficulties. [1] [2] Head of business development Henning Kuehl has said:
There's a structural problem slowing down the process: ship owners (who have to make the investment) often don't pay for the fuel – that's the charterer's duty. The charterer on the other side doesn't charter the ship for long enough a period to make low-carbon technologies pay back.
The lack of carbon emissions regulations for shipping and low fuel prices have added to these difficulties. [2]
In the weak economy of 2012, a time of low investment by shipping companies, the company laid off half of its 80 employees. On March 7, 2016, SkySails GmbH, as part of the SkySails Group, was forced to file for insolvency and was dissolved on April 5, 2016. Since then, SkySails Group GmbH, as the successor company, has continued business operations and has developed a further business area in the form of the SkySails Power division.
The company's headquarters are in Hamburg. The assembly of ground stations of the airborne wind energy systems takes place in Lower-Saxony.
The SkySails propulsion system consists of an automatically controlled foil kite of some hundreds of square meters, an electronic control system for the kite, and an automatic system to retract the kite.
The ram-air kite, [3] while 1-2 orders of magnitude larger, bears similarities to the arc kites used in kitesurfing. For multiple reasons, ram-air kites give many times the thrust per unit area of conventional mast-mounted sails. Additionally, a control pod is used rather than direct tension on multiple kite control lines; only one line runs the full distance from kite to ship, with the bridle lines running from kite to control pod. Power to the pod is provided by cables embedded in the line; the same line also carries commands to the control pod from the ship. [4]
The kite is launched and recovered by an animated mast or arm, which grips the kite by its leading edge. The mast also inflates and deflates the kite. When not in use, mast and deflated kite fold away. [4]
A conventional ship with a SkySails system burns less fuel, and has two propulsion methods, making it a type of hybrid vehicle. SkySails' kite propulsion from upper wind power is a traction use of high altitude wind power. Up to 100 million tons of carbon emissions every year could be saved by widespread use of SkySails technology, according to the International Maritime Organization. [2]
Other companies, such as California-based KiteShip, have built similar technology. [1]
The Wessels Shipping Company (w:de:Reederei Wessels) entered into a partnership with SkySails to pilot and test the system on their ship MV Micheal A. in 2007. They then ordered further systems, the first of which was retrofitted to the MV Theseus (see image). [5]
MS Beluga SkySails was the first ship to be built to use the system, and the first using a production model. The 132 m, 10,000 tonne vessel was fitted with a 160-square-metre (1,700 sq ft) kite and launched 17 December 2007 and departed the northern German port of Bremerhaven to Guanta, Venezuela in January 2008. [6]
The ship completed its journey on 13 March 2008 after sailing from Germany to Venezuela, then to the United States, and ultimately arriving in Norway. [7] While the kite was in use, the ship saved an estimated 10-15% fuel, $1,000 to $1,500 per day. [6]
The annual savings in consumption on windy routes is on the order of about 5.5%, as determined by the EU-funded Life project WINTECC (duration four years). [8] [9] [10]
In early 2010, the company announced that it had sold one of its 160m² systems to be installed on the Maartje Theadora , the first application of the SkySails system on a fishing trawler. The vessel is described as Germany's largest fishing ship, and the kite is expected to reduce fuel costs on the runs to fishing grounds along the African coasts or the South Pacific. [11]
The systems save fuel, and reduce carbon emissions and shipping costs, but have not been widely adopted. [1] [2]
SkySails Power GmbH was founded in 2015 for the development of airborne wind energy systems. A pilot plant in Schleswig-Holstein has been in operation since the end of 2019.
Driven by the wind, the automatically controlled power kite rises in figures of eight. As it gains altitude, it unwinds a tether from a winch on the ground. The tractive force drives a generator inside the winch that produces electricity. Once the tether has reached its maximum extension of 800 meters, the autopilot steers the kite into a neutral position with minimal drag and lift. While consuming only a fraction of the energy generated before, the generator now acts as a motor and reels-in the tether. [12] The system continuously repeats this process, flying the kite at an altitude of 200 to 400 meters. Energy generated by the Airborne Wind Energy System can be fed into the grid, stored in batteries, or directly consumed.
The airborne wind energy unit in Schleswig-Holstein was built as part of the joint research project "SkyPower100", funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and involving SkySails Power GmbH, EnBW Energie Baden-Württemberg AG, Omexom Renewable Energies Offshore GmbH and Leibniz Universität Hannover. From the operation of the airborne wind energy system, the consortium intends to gain knowledge for the further development and scaling of airborne wind energy systems as well as on environmental influences, safety aspects and licensing requirements. This includes, for example, expert opinions on noise emissions, avifauna and air traffic safety. [13]
An electric boat is a powered watercraft driven by electric motors, which are powered by either on-board battery packs, solar panels or generators.
Unpowered aircraft can remain airborne for a significant period of time without onboard propulsion. They can be classified as gliders, lighter-than-air balloons and tethered kites. In the case of kites, lift is obtained by tethering to a fixed or moving object, perhaps another kite, to obtain a flow of wind over the lifting surfaces. In the case of balloons, lift is obtained through inherent buoyancy and the balloon may or may not be tethered. Free balloon flight has little directional control. Gliding aircraft include sailplanes, hang gliders, and paragliders that have full directional control in free flight.
Kite types, kite mooring, and kite applications result in a variety of kite control systems. Contemporary manufacturers, kite athletes, kite pilots, scientists, and engineers are expanding the possibilities.
The Age of Sail is a period that lasted at the latest from the mid-16th to the mid-19th centuries, in which the dominance of sailing ships in global trade and warfare culminated, particularly marked by the introduction of naval artillery, and ultimately reached its highest extent at the advent of the analogue Age of Steam. Enabled by the advances of the related Age of Navigation, it is identified as a distinctive element of the early modern period and the Age of Discovery. Especially in context of the latter, it refers to a more particular Eurocentric Age of Sail, while generally the Age of Sail is the culminating period of a long intercontinental history of sailing.
A so-called zero-emission vehicle, or ZEV, is a vehicle that does not emit exhaust gas or other pollutants from the onboard source of power but still emits pollutants during its construction phase, production of energy carrier etc. Therefore, the term "zero-emission" has been described as abusive or greenwashing.
A rotor ship is a type of ship designed to use the Magnus effect for propulsion. The ship is propelled, at least in part, by large powered vertical rotors, sometimes known as rotor sails. German engineer Anton Flettner was the first to build a ship that attempted to tap this force for propulsion, and ships using his type of rotor are sometimes known as Flettner ships.
An airborne wind turbine is a design concept for a wind turbine with a rotor supported in the air without a tower, thus benefiting from the higher velocity and persistence of wind at high altitudes, while avoiding the expense of tower construction, or the need for slip rings or yaw mechanism. An electrical generator may be on the ground or airborne. Challenges include safely suspending and maintaining turbines hundreds of meters off the ground in high winds and storms, transferring the harvested and/or generated power back to earth, and interference with aviation.
Airborne wind energy (AWE) is the direct use or generation of wind energy by the use of aerodynamic or aerostatic lift devices. AWE technology is able to harvest high altitude winds, in contrast to wind turbines, which use a rotor mounted on a tower.
Marine propulsion is the mechanism or system used to generate thrust to move a watercraft through water. While paddles and sails are still used on some smaller boats, most modern ships are propelled by mechanical systems consisting of an electric motor or internal combustion engine driving a propeller, or less frequently, in pump-jets, an impeller. Marine engineering is the discipline concerned with the engineering design process of marine propulsion systems.
MS Onego Deusto is a commercial container cargo ship. It is the world's first ship partially powered by a computer-controlled kite rig, called the SkySails system. It consists of a kite similar to a huge paraglider of up to 160 square metres (1,700 sq ft) area.
A hydrogen ship is a hydrogen fueled ship, using an electric motor that gets its electricity from a fuel cell, or hydrogen fuel in an internal combustion engine.
Different types of flying kites have niche applications. In nature, some animals, such as spiders, also make use of kiting.
Beluga Shipping was a German heavy-lift shipping company in the Hanseatic city of Bremen. It was a world market leader in heavy-lift shipping and also highly innovative in related fields. As such, it was the first to equip ships of its fleet with SkySails that can reduce fuel consumption by up to 5%, and was the first company to send a heavy-lift ship from Europe to Asia along the Northern Sea Route through the Arctic Ocean rather than through the Suez Canal. The company was declared insolvent in March 2011, affecting 670 employees.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to wind energy:
Crosswind kite power is power derived from airborne wind-energy conversion systems or crosswind kite power systems (CWKPS). The kite system is characterized by energy-harvesting parts flying transverse to the direction of the ambient wind, i.e., to crosswind mode; sometimes the entire wing set and tether set is flown in crosswind mode. From toy to power-grid-feeding sizes, these systems may be used as high-altitude wind power (HAWP) devices or low-altitude wind power (LAWP) devices without having to use towers. Flexible wings or rigid wings may be used in the kite system. A tethered wing, flying in crosswind at many times wind speed, harvests wind power from an area that exceeds the wing's total area by many times.
Wind assisted propulsion is the practice of decreasing the fuel consumption of a merchant vessel through the use of sails or some other wind capture device. Sails used to be the primary means of propelling ships, but with the advent of the steam engine and the diesel engine, sails came to be used for recreational sailing only. In recent years with increasing fuel costs and an increased focus on reducing emissions, there has been increased interest in harnessing the power of the wind to propel commercial ships.
Kite rigs are wind-assisted propulsion systems for propelling a vehicle. They differ from conventional sails in that they are flown from kite control lines, not supported by masts.
Kitepower is a registered trademark of the Dutch company Enevate B.V. developing mobile airborne wind power systems. Kitepower was founded in 2016 by Johannes Peschel and Roland Schmehl as a university spin-off from the Delft University of Technology’s airborne wind energy research group established by the former astronaut Wubbo Ockels. The company is located in Delft, Netherlands, and currently comprises 18 employees (2018).
The decarbonization of shipping is an ongoing goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from shipping to net-zero by or around 2050, which is the goal of the International Maritime Organization (IMO). The IMO has an initial strategy. This includes the practice of lowering or limiting the combustion of fossil fuels for power and propulsion to limit emission of carbon dioxide.
