My suspicions:
One thing that bothers me is the absence of an extended observation of more than a few hours.
I know from my own experience that if I charge my shop compressor tank up to a full 150 psi air tools only require about 90, so I can fill the tank and shut the compressor off and set the pressure regulator at 90 psi and use air tools pretty much all day long until the pressure falls below 90 psi in the tank.
Now to start the big KPP system they fill the tank from a hose going to "the main".
You need only 0.443 psi for every foot down in the water to overcome the water pressure, so if a tower is, say 35 feet tall you only need about 15 psi to inject air that deep down.
So my question is, how long can this thing run on a tank pressurized to maximum, maybe 200psi from the main?
You then get the thing going and it will run the compressor. The compressor keeps the thing going and it could loop that way for a very long time before the pressure drops from 150 to 200 psi down to maybe 20 or 30 before they need to shut it down and refill the tank from the main and start it up again.
So, after a few hours there is this note:
Misc. Notes:
~ 3:45 pm, when I plugged in a grounded extension cord, with nothing plugged into it, using an 2-pronged adaptor, something tripped and the system shut down. (Later, when I told Mr. Dohmen about this, he guessed that the one-prong-only ground connection {usually 2 in Germany} was seen as an anomaly by the circuitry triggering it to shut off. The circuitry is designed to shut off in case someone tries to figure out what is in the circuitry via an outlet.)
OK, so maybe that was just a coincidence.
With the small transparent unit they had to keep shutting it down periodically to prevent it from "overheating".
Or maybe there is a paintball tank under the hood of that little compressor or somewhere. A carbon fiber paintball tank can hold 3000 psi and is relatively small and I could charge one up with my little high pressure Yong Heng.
So a tank about 10 feet high would require just 5 psi pressure to operate.
Now, I'm not making any claims, just saying, if someone really wanted to pull a fast one it's not entirely inconceivable, and I haven't even gotten into, suppose the "main" is pumping out liquid air?
I think that would be obvious. The air tank and hoses would frost up,
But, the thing was also apparently cranking out 18 kw continuously for several hours at least:
the system was producing 18 kW continuously, powering several lights and heaters.
My theory would assume the boyancy motor could run the compressor could run the boyancy motor almost indefinitely NO LOAD.
I doubt any kind of air driven generator or air motor could operate that big of a power draw (18 Kw) from a relatively small tank of air for more than a few minutes regardless of the starting pressure.
But I see no good reason really for filling the tank from "the main" when you should be able to just run the compressor in the room. The start up would just take a little longer maybe... Right?
Having to shut down the small unit every so often to prevent "overheating" seems a bit odd also. A high pressure little compressor like my Yong Heng can run for a short while without water cooling, but all compressors get very hot. But really? They have a giant tank of water that could be used to keep things cool.
The other thing is, well, as indicated previously, the filing status of Ki-Tech is, and apparently has been for years "dormant" in the UK.
Another concern is that "GAIA" had apparently been offering small units to run homes.
Great idea, IMO, but the units, apparently never materialized (?) and money, at least, was refunded, but, now Rosch will only sell utility or very large scale type systems...
I don't know, it's really all rather surreal.
So far my inquiries (forms filled out on the website) to Ki-Tech have gone unanswered.
But it's only been a day or so.