Incorporation of Airborne Wind Energy Systems to Enhance Resiliency for a Microgrid in Rural Puerto Rico

Abstract. This study evaluates the deployment potential of airborne wind energy systems (AWES) in Puerto Rico to identify early-adopter locations and assess impacts to microgrid resilience. Prospective sites across the island are assessed in quantum global information software using infrastructure and environmental layers combined with high-altitude wind resource data. Culebra, an island reliant on an underwater transmission line and highly susceptible to hurricanes, is selected as a representative case study for microgrid modeling. A real-world published power curve for a commercial 120-kW AWES, in combination with local wind and solar resource data, are integrated into the Microgrid Design Toolkit to simulate standalone and hybrid systems incorporating AWES, photovoltaics, and battery energy storage systems under realistic outage conditions and design-basis threats such as tropical storms and hurricanes. Seasonal complementarity between wind and solar is assessed, and performance metrics are evaluated with an emphasis on resilience outcomes. Results demonstrate that AWES can support a combination of priority and non-priority loads during extended grid disruptions and enable faster post-storm re-energization in isolated or infrastructure-limited settings, establishing Puerto Rico as a strong candidate for early-stage AWES adoption. Optimized results show that a configuration of three AWES systems with battery storage achieved approximately 92 % and 91 % energy availability for non-priority and priority loads respectively during modeled outages, while a hybrid configuration integrating one AWES, a photovoltaic array, and one battery energy storage system yielded approximately 85 % and 91 % availability for non-priority and priority loads, respectively.