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 at 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 got 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 absorb 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 expected 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.
Download the press release here: /download/1053
25 December 2020 09:30
Successfully passed 125 flights in 2020
After Kitemill's kite number 5 in the KM1 series "Spark 5" completed its first flight in mid-December, the company has completed over 125 flights over Lista in 2020. Kite number 4 in the KM1 series...
28 November 2020 21:21
LIDAR campaign at Lista
In mid-November 2020, PhD student Jan Markus Diezel started measuring the speed of the wind over Lista Airport based on LIDAR measurements. LIDAR is basically the same technology that self-driving ...
23 October 2020 16:02
- Kitemill is truly sector leading
The highly respected Airborne Wind Energy (AWE) expert David Ainsworth is now a senior advisor for Kitemill. The company general manager, Thomas Hårklau, is very pleased that David Ainsworth now is...
18 September 2020 14:34
The KM1 Spark kite automatic launch and landing
A strong focus of engineering of a more robust kite system pays off with great results in our August 2020 test campaings.
15 September 2020 16:10
New QHSE manager with long management experience from Avinor
Otto de Besche is Kitemill's new quality manager, with responsibility for the company's quality, health, environment and safety. He has over 40 years of experience from the air traffic service, Avi...
11 August 2020 09:22
The IEA focuses on airborne wind in large energy workshop
The International Energy Agency (IEA) is now putting a sharp focus on airborne wind energy in a large conference that will be held digitally on 23. and 24. September 2020. On the landing page of th...