An innovative approach to harnessing the wind at altitude
Rotokite
Hely Mill
The exploitation of wind at high altitude to produce renewable energy is
perhaps the most important challenge of these years
“Wind is Sun’s heat transformed into kinetic energy through the greatest solar collector currently available,
Earth’s atmosphere. Wind total power is estimated between 1,700 and 3,500 TW; by comparison, the whole
mankind primary energy needs are estimated at approx. 14 TW.”
Cristina Archer, Stanford University
Wind Speeds
Useful areas for traditional generators
Wind Speeds
Useful areas for high altitude wing generator
With traditional windmill we can only exploit
2% energy of the wind
Rotokite and Hely-Mill system
Rotokite and Hely Mill project aims at using wind more efficiently and effectively by implementing an adaptive wing profile rotating on their axis like the blades of a helicopter
More installation areas available: on the land and off-shore
Low costs for electricity production
Wind at only 250 m is: steadier, faster, more persistent, more energy
Winds at higher altitudes become steadier, more persistent, and of higher velocity.
Power available in wind increases as the cube of velocity.
With a proper steadiness and more predictability, high-altitude winds have an advantage over near-ground winds for generating energy purposes.
High wind energy research in history
The first industrial research to generate energy from the wind dates back to almost 100 years ago with a project by Telefunken.
The Austrialian Professor Bryan Roberts has realised a prototype of wind generator that has been called Flying Electric Generator (FEG).
Google Makani
Google Makani is trying to develop an energy system that use an aircraft with several electric generator/engines tethered to a ground station to efficiently harness energy from the wind, generating electricity at utility-scale.
However, in the absence of important results, today only a few million euros are invested in one of the most fascinating technological challenges
Rotokite and Hely-Mill project
“No wind is favourable for those who do not know where to go, but for us who know, even a breeze will be precious.” Rainer Maria Rilke
“First, there is the power of the Wind, constantly exerted over the globe… Here is an almost incalculable power at our disposal, yet how trifling the use we make of it.”
Henry David Thoreau (1834)
The energy from the wind at high altitude
Opinions about
Rotokite system
The team
Giovanni D. Lanzilotti
Sequoia Application Engineer
WEC project – MIT (USA)
MoS Nuclear and Energy Engineering – Politecnico di Torino
Massimo Mangiarotti
+7 years Sequoia IT Product manager
Executive MBA – Politecnico di Milano
BS Aerospace Engineering – Politecnico di Milano
Gianni Vergnano
G.M.
Sequoia IT owner
MCom – LUISS
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