Makani (company) explained

Makani Technologies LLC
Type:Subsidiary
Industry:Wind power
Foundation:2006
Key People:Saul Griffith, Corwin Hardham, Donald Montague, Damon Vander Lind
Num Employees:20+
Parent:Alphabet Inc.
Homepage:makanipower.com

Makani Technologies LLC was an Alameda, California-based company that developed airborne wind turbines.[1] Founded in 2006, Makani was acquired by Google in May 2013. In February 2020, Makani was shut down by Alphabet, Google's parent company.

History

Makani was founded in 2006 by Saul Griffith, Don Montague, and Corwin Hardham.[2] It received funding as part of Google.org's Renewable Energy cheaper than Coal (RE[3] "Makani" is Hawaiian for "wind."[4] Corwin Hardham died in 2012 at age 38.[5] On 23 May 2013, Makani Power was acquired by Google and was folded into Google X.[6] In 2015, Fort Felker, former director of the National Wind Technology Center at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) was hired as CEO.[7]

In December 2016, Makani operated for the first time a 600 kW prototype with 28 meter wing span.[8] [9]

Starting August 2018, Makani operated an energy kite test site on the Big Island of Hawaii.[10]

In February 2019, Makani was separated from X and made into a subsidiary of Alphabet. At the same time, Royal Dutch Shell made a minority investment in Makani and began a partnership with the company to develop its business.[11]

In 2019 the offshore energy kite was lost during testing. Investigation and reporting on the technical details of the mishap was undertaken. The wing did not successfully land on the platform resulting in the loss of the energy kite.[12] [13]

In February 2020, Alphabet shut down Makani. The company said "Despite strong technical progress, the road to commercialization is longer and riskier than hoped."[14] In September 2020, Makani released the Energy Kite Collection — a three-part report and accompanying collection of open source code repositories, flight logs and technical videos from the project. It also released Pulling Power from the Sky: The Story of Makani, a documentary on the project, and made a non-assertion pledge on its patent portfolio, allowing anyone to use its patents without fear of legal reprisal.[15] [16]

Technology

In order to meet its goal of producing low-cost renewable energy, the Makani kite-energy system used autonomous tethered wings which flew in a circular path and generated electricity via wind turbines mounted upon the main wing, a method known as crosswind kite power, originally envisioned by Miles Loyd in a 1980 paper. Loyd stated that for large scale purposes flying the generators was expected to be disfavored because of the need to fly the mass of the generators;[17] many of Makani Power competitors have generators kept on the ground, like KiteGen, Italy.[18] The electricity is generated on the ground in the tether, utilising tension in the cable connected to the kite.[19]

See also

External links

Notes and References

  1. News: Kirsner. Scott. A generator that’s lighter than air — and relatively light on the wallet. 17 April 2011 . The Boston Globe.
  2. Web site: Company History. makanipower.com. 17 November 2023. 14 March 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20130314035038/http://www.makanipower.com/company-history/. bot: unknown.
  3. Web site: Investing in a cleaner energy revolution. The Official Google.org Blog . https://web.archive.org/web/20071212234002/http://blog.google.org/2007/11/investing-in-cleaner-energy-revolution.html . 12 December 2007 . Gregory . Miller.
  4. Web site: Wagner. Eric. High-altitude Wind Power. Conservation. University of Washington. 13 April 2014. 7 December 2012.
  5. Web site: Makani Power’s Corwin Hardham Dies; Service Scheduled . bot: unknown . https://web.archive.org/web/20140222230216/http://www.ibabuzz.com/alamedajournal/2012/10/26/service-for-late-makani-power-ceo-scheduled/ . 22 February 2014 . Alameda Journal Blog . Janet . Levaux . 26 October 2012.
  6. News: Google acquires kite-power generator. BBC News. 23 May 2013.
  7. Web site: Dr. Fort Felker profile on Makani web page . https://web.archive.org/web/20191204200229/https://x.company/team/fortf/ . 4 December 2019.
  8. Web site: Makani’s first commercial-scale energy kite. 27 May 2018. YouTube.
  9. Felker. Fort. 5 October 2017. Progress and Challenges in Airborne Wind Energy. Airborne Wind Energy Conference 2017. Freiburg, Germany. University of Freiburg.
  10. News: Landry. Fuller. 27 August 2018. Ride like the wind: Makani energy kite test flights in the works, lift off later this year. West Hawaii Today. 24 March 2019.
  11. Web site: Shell joins Alphabet in power-generating kites plan. Waters. Richard. Hook. Leslie. 13 February 2019. Financial Times. 23 April 2019.
  12. Web site: Felker. Fort. 15 August 2019. Makani’s airborne wind power system takes flight offshore. 18 September 2020. Medium. en.
  13. Web site: Makani tests energy kite. 18 September 2020. 4c Offshore.
  14. Web site: Lardinois. Frederic. 19 February 2020. Alphabet takes the wind out of its Makani energy kites. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20201218035500/https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/18/alphabet-takes-the-wind-out-of-its-makani-energy-kites/. 18 December 2020. 27 December 2020. TechCrunch. en-US.
  15. Web site: Anderson. Mark. 15 September 2020. Exclusive: Airborne Wind Energy Company Closes Shop, Opens Patents. live. https://archive.today/20201227143956/https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/renewables/exclusive-airborne-wind-energy-company-closes-shop-opens-patents. 27 December 2020. 27 December 2020. IEEE Spectrum. en.
  16. Web site: Echeverri. Paula. 10 September 2020. Sharing Makani with the world: The Energy Kite Collection. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20201227130630/https://blog.x.company/sharing-makani-with-the-world-the-energy-kite-collection-ea49398df78c?gi=11a847e0256d. 27 December 2020. 27 December 2020. Medium. en.
  17. Miles Loyd, 1980: homes.esat.kuleuven.be (pdf)
  18. AWES Museum www.energykitesystems.net || KiteGen http://kitegen.com/
  19. News: Harper. Ben. Start-ups are devising kites to turn wind power into a cheap source of power. 27 July 2011. The Washington Post. 21 March 2011.

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