Horizontal axis wind turbines are today approaching 100 m diameter. They have become the largest aerodynamic devices ever built. At this size, they can put out a little over 2 MW - about the same as a medium helicopter or 100 times less than an airliner. They may reach 5 MW before they become uneconomic. Wind energy is about to hit the wall, the limits of scale.
The system we wish to study uses tensile structures similar to those of a kite and can be a much more fragile structure since they can be stored during bad weather. They can also be optimized for lower wind speeds. It may be that the most important thing is that they have different scale limits. This style of turbine may be able to produce power for less than 2 cents / KWh.
The cost of transmission is also a factor in the price of power. Today many power plants are located far from the cities they serve. Distributed wind energy systems at class 3 or 4 sites will often be much closer to population centers.
