Airborne Wind Energy (AWE) concept with hard-wing implementation involves putting an

aerodynamic hard-wing up in the air which would be tethered to the ground using non-
conductive cable. That cable or tether would be wound on a spindle which would be further
connected to the shaft of the generator. The aerodynamic device, harnessing the energy of the
wind, would fly in an algorithmic curve. This flying would induce tension in the tether which
would be used to rotate the spindle & ultimately the shaft. When the tether would be about to
finish, the aerodynamic device would move towards the ground station by spending the
minimum amount of energy. Simultaneously, a motor would be activated, so as to reel in the
tether in the minimum possible time. This whole process would be repeated. This would
generate a certain amount of energy depending on the aerodynamic device, tether property,
generator type, wind parameters etc.
The above description mentions one kind of an AWE system (hard-wing, single tether, cross-
wing generation, generator-on-ground) that JSE has chosen to focus on due to greater potential
for energy generation and reduced cost of operation. Other system configurations include soft-
wing designs, stationary turbine generation vs cross-wind generation, single vs multiple tethers
and high altitude vs low altitude systems.

The solution could potentially increase the capacity factor to 50-55% instead of the regular 30-
40% while cutting down on the cost of tower and foundation of a wind mill by 15-25%.