“the S2000 can easily be transported and stored in shipping containers,…its airborne design allows flexible deployment and retrieval, making it especially suitable for sparsely populated areas where large-scale infrastructure is difficult to build…………………Wang noted that the key to SAWES’ commercialization lies in whether the costs of manufacturing, deploying, retrieving, and transmitting electricity from the airborne system can be covered - or even exceeded - by the power it generates.”
It will be fascinating to see the economics of this. If these can be delivered in shipping containers it means they can be deployed almost anywhere. These would be the perfect way for places like Africa to expand their electricity generation capacity.
World’s first urban-use mW-class high-altitude wind turbine completes test flight
You probably shouldn’t fly this over populated areas anyway. I guess you could if you had too, and granted hydrogen would be worse in that case.
Aluminum is pretty impermeable to hydrogen, isn’t it? A foil layer would add weight, but then again hydrogen has slightly more lifting power, as well. Helium also leaks through some materials.