Social Acceptance of emerging renewables: Airborne Wind Energy
14 april 2023 16:00 t/m 17:00 - Locatie: Zoom - Door: Social Innovation in the Energy Transition | Zet in mijn agenda
Topic
Researchers and developers across the world have been working for the past two decades on producing renewable electricity with automatic kites. This so-called airborne wind energy technology converts the pulling forces of the kite into electric energy. The technology is expected to have multiple advantages over wind turbines: it can tap into the vast, unused wind resources above turbines (around 100-200m), it uses up to 80% less materials than a turbine, and it can be more easily transported and (un)installed, thereby making it suitable for more temporary or remote applications (e.g., islands, mines). However, the success and adoption of airborne wind energy does not only depend on technical, economic, and environmental aspects, but also on social factors.
Helena Schmidt, PhD candidate in the Wind Energy Section at TU Delft, will present her research on the social acceptance of airborne wind energy. After giving a brief introduction into the technology, she will explain how existing knowledge and research frameworks on the acceptability of established renewables can be applied to studying airborne wind energy. Helena will then present how she is investigating the topic in her PhD and discuss some preliminary findings from her survey of residents living close to an airborne wind energy site in Germany.
Helena Schmidt
Helena Schmidt is a PhD candidate in the Aerospace Engineering Faculty (Wind Energy Section) at TU Delft since May 2021. She studied environmental and clinical psychology at Erasmus University Rotterdam, Leiden University, and the University of Groningen. After her studies, she briefly worked for the Psychology for Sustainable Cities research group at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. Helena is interested in how behavioural insights can foster pro-environmental action and sustainable transitions. She is specifically curious about people’s engagement with and responses to energy technologies and systems. Helena is one of the first researchers to investigate the acceptance of airborne wind energy. She is also an active member of work package 4 on social acceptance in the International Energy Agency’s Wind Task 48 on airborne wind energy.