Kitemill Buys KPS

Norwegian Kitemill AS has acquired the intellectual property assets of Scottish KPS (Kite Power Systems). Kitemill absorb the KPS assets and continue development in Norway where they plan to set up the first airborne wind demonstration park in Lista as early as 2021.

After several years of dialogue about industry consolidation between KPS and Kitemill, Kitemill has purchased the KPS intellectual property. In recent years, the Scottish company KPS has generated significant value in its intellectual property in the form of patents, prototypes, design reports, simulations, technical results, market reports and more.

A lot of expertise

“It is great that we won through and had the opportunity to buy the KPS intellectual property. It also pleases us that key previous KPS employees are available for continued cooperation and can contribute to support the absorption of the KPS knowledge into Kitemill. This adds a lot of expertise to Norway, and especially on the development that KPS has carried out regarding the ground station, airborne systems and design tools. This adds significant value to Kitemill's research and development values”, says Kitemill's CEO Thomas Hårklau.

"The value of all intellectual property from KPS is difficult to estimate for sure, but it is clear that this will set us up for faster growth in both sales, earnings and the number of jobs," says Thomas Hårklau.

Consolidation in the AWE industry

“This is very good news for the Airborne Wind Energy industry. It makes sense to collaborate on the development of new energy technologies, we have been expecting to see consolidation and concentration of R&D resources in the industry, and this is exactly what is happening now. We are therefore very pleased that previous key personnel from KPS have indicated that they are willing to support us to get the maximum out of all the efforts that have been made on both sides of the North Sea”, says Jon Gjerde, main shareholder in Kitemill and chairman of Airborne Wind Europe.

Airborne Wind Energy (Facts)

- Important for achieving the climate goals

- Accessing large and stable energy resources

- Higher availability with more full-load hours every year

- Less than 10% materials vs conventional wind turbines

- Significantly reduced Capex

- Lower cost of energy (LCoE), indicative below 30€/MWh

- Increases the geographical market for profitable wind power globally

- Flying as a drone, reduced logistics cost

- Kites can fly by its selves between power plant and maintenance and service centers.

- Maintenance moved away from wind farm to a more suitable location

- Re-power of offshore wind turbines with kite turbines, with less mechanical stress can increase the life of the foundation

Read more about Kitemill at: https://www.kitemill.com/

Contact: Thomas Hårklau, CEO Kitemill AS, +47 4683 7117, th@kitemill.no