Commissioning of Dragon 4 in Vestmannasund – the optimization journey continues

The commissioning program of the first Dragon 4 unit launched in Vestmannasund, Faroe Islands in May, is progressing according to plan and the flight configurations are being finetuned sequentially to optimise the power output. The kite, recently named “Íðunn”, is operating autonomously 40 m below the surface and is remotely monitored, accessed, and managed through advanced systems.

“We’re now commissioning the kite in Vestmannasund fully remotely from our headquarter in Sweden. The team is screening a vast volume of data every day to support configuration for optimized power production,” said Bernt Erik Westre, Chief Technology Officer of Minesto.

The submerged nature of the technology calls for the ability to monitor behaviour and performance, and thereby adjust parameters as part of the tuning process. The human-machine-interface (HMI) provides the operator with real-time data and graphical representation of information from both the kite and the onshore control station. A quick glimpse from the SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) HMI-interface in the image attached shows, for example, the flight information on kite pitch, roll and position of the rudders and elevators.

The commissioning program also includes tuning of the tether system. The kite unit is fitted with a camera capturing the segments of the tether system to visually report tether behaviour against reference marks during flight.

“The fact that the control system and the algorithms dictating the flight are developed inhouse is a crucial part of our competitiveness – it enables us to optimize the system on a very detailed level”, said Martin Edlund, CEO of Minesto.