Efficiency and Lifetime Analysis of Several Airborne Wind Energy Electrical Drive Concepts

Several electrical drive concepts and control strategies for airborne wind energy systems are compared in this work. The results suggest that the proposed modified kite trajectory control and the parallel drive concept can indeed reduce the required silicon chip area and prolong the converter's lifetime without significantly impacting the overall system efficiency. The compromise is however, a higher system complexity and larger torque ripples which could impact the noise profile of the electrical machine. The investigation also reveals that the power converter size is influenced by the installation location and the associated wind class. Where installations around land agricultural areas have the biggest impact on the drive train because of the high wind turbulence.