708
'Windmill': China tests world’s first megawatt-level airship to capture high winds
(interestingengineering.com)
this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2025
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Technology
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I like how everyone conveniently leaves out the part that this is an emergency backup not actual full time scalable tool.
This one in particular: maybe.
The approach in gerenal: not so much.
Have a look here: https://skysails-power.com/systems/venyo/
The one you posted is not for scaling either. I just dont see how this maintenance overhead could ever scale for mass use.
I don't know what you mean by mass use. It's pretty clear that these approaches are meant to add to existing solutions or provide off-grid energy at remote locations.
If you can bring a standard 30 foot container there, you can consider such a kite installation, if other requirements are met.
I don't see, you can't use multiple installations at different locations aka scale it.
Basically every other option will almost always be better, no? I guess we'll see as someone actually brings some of these to the market but my guess would be that this is not going to go anywhere.
I can see those kites being used at remote locations, islands, remote villages, etc.
Add some battery to it and you have a quite reliable source of electric energy.
What option would be better in these cases in your opinion?
I live in remote locations as a digital nomad and this would never really work. The maintenance overhead of even normal ground wind turbines is too much for remote areas. Solar and battery storage is really unbeatable.
Some new generation wind turbines can be decent ive heard but there are also small novel solutions like mini water turbines can be surprisingly useful.
Neither the kite based solution nor the blimp based solution is fit for the purpose of serving single or few people with electrical energy.
For that scenario some kWp based on solar can be had for cheap and some kWh battery on top doesn't cost a fortune either.
I never insinuated that the kite or blimp are the perfect solution for every scenario - rather that it may be a match for situation that couldn't be served well by the available means.
honestly it seems like we're kinda in agreement here
I think so too.
With electric energy, there's no "one size fits all" solution.
These novel approaches will fit somewhere.