AWE Safety & Technical Guidelines

For the AWE sector safety is key. We work on addressing all safety related aspects of the AWE system components (kite, tether, ground station), operations, noise emissions, power curves and other issues that shall be described in technical guidelines. We also work on how to efficiently conduct the permitting process in cooperation with aviation authorities. 

The MegaAWE project and IEA Wind Task 48 (WP3) develop safety and technical guidelines. 

AWE is at the interface between aviation and energy related standards and regulation: 

• On the one hand, airspace integration, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS = drones) and other aviation-related air and ground risks need to be considered. The EU regulation on drones provides an opportunity for AWE to benefit from European-wide rules, e.g. on risk assessments (SORA) and operations.

See: EU Delegated Regulation 2019/945 on UAS; EU Implementing Regulation 2019/947 on the rules and procedures for the operation of unmanned aircraft. EASA UAS rules

• On the other hand, (parts of) the well–established standards for wind energy systems will need to be adapted to AWE. For instance topics like grid compliance, power performance, electrical components will fall under the IEC-61400 (or still to-be-defined AWE-specific additions or annexes). 

The following provides documents elaborated by the AWE sector: 

– Key Safety Principles for operation of experimental and developmental Airborne Wind Energy Systems

– An introduction to the Specific Operations Risk Assessment (SORA) for Airborne Wind Energy

– Safe AWE Testing CONOPS Guidelines