Photograph courtesy Makani Power
Resembling a drone aircraft on a string, the Makani Airborne Wind Turbine takes flight at its test site, the decommissioned U.S. Navy air station at Alameda on San Francisco Bay.
By eliminating 90 percent of the material associated with a conventional wind turbine-largely by getting rid of the tower—the designers say they hope to reduce cost while accessing stronger winds.
The winged device is tethered to the ground and flies in large vertical circles at altitudes between 800 and 1,950 feet (250 and 600 meters). Its four wind turbines rotate as the craft moves. According to Makani Power, the speed of the craft increases along with wind speed.
Makani Power's website says the company is developing a 600-kilowatt (kW) prototype. That's considered the size of a medium commercial wind turbine; for comparison, a 600 kW land-based turbine installed in 2009 at University of Maine at Presque Isle generated 680,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity in its first year, enough to power about 60 average U.S. homes. But an airborne wind turbine might deliver more or less power, depending on the boost of stronger, more consistent winds or the cost of trickier operation.
Makani was founded in 2006 and received $10 million in initial start-up capital from Google's foundation, plus support from the U.S. Department of Energy.
One of Makani's three co-founders, Corwin Hardham, has told reporters he was inspired by his hobby of kite-surfing. It's not a coincidence that Alameda has a beach that is popular with Bay Area kite-surfers. It also isn't far from Google headquarters; the company's founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, are known to be avid kite-surfers.
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