Makani Power: wind flying glider

[Christophe]

Other projects of flying wind turbines: http://www.courantpositif.fr/eoliennes- ... le-ciel-2/

[Christophe]

A video on Makani at JT FR2: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x14m11 ... mbediframe

[netshaman]

Goods.
I already knew this type of wind turbine.
And I wondered if it was smaller ...
It would be a good plan for energy independence.

[Christophe]

As a pilot, I can tell you that it is not a very good idea to democratize wind turbines that would rise to 200m high ... or even that 100 m ...

Air regulations are anyway very strict on this point of view! We can not put anything in the air especially that floating wind turbines move and can eventually fall!

For me flying wind turbines have a future in sparsely populated areas, far from aerodromes and air corridors ... and we can expect that some countries will never accept them ...

[Did67]

probable hypothesis, inspired by the fact that a current racing yacht is capable of sailing much faster than the wind to best paces (through the broad reach): why not imagine that to turn in circles along a path necessarily always through the true wind (because it is captive) would give a linear speed much higher than that of the wind? In this case the rotors would be placed either in motion by the action of the true wind (as if it were static upwind) but only by the relative wind created by the movement of the machine. Given that wind energy increases with the square of its speed, the gain could be significant ...

But that is just a guess on my part ;-)

I think so too. Considering the respective surfaces of the wing and those of the blades of the "wind turbines". I think that the kite "captures" the energy of a weak wind, that with a well calculated orientation one manages to "turn" faster than the carrier vet and therefore that the kite will "collect" energy, returned in the form of speed to the blades of the wind turbine ...

But I am neither pilot nor sailor ...! ?

Compared to the "congestion" problems that this kind of engis could pose, there will come the moment when it will be necessary for the man to make heaps of arbitrations:

- solar panels and other uses of surfaces
- heating or anaerobic digestion and other uses of biomass (including food, "green spaces", etc.)
- onshore wind turbines and "panoramas / view"
- wind turbines of this type and "low level" civil aviation (I did not say "upper floor"!) ...
etc ...

[moinsdewatt]

Google is doing it too.

A true prototype (plus a model) will fly next month. Expected power of 600 kW.

Google to launch airborne wind turbines

March 18, 2015 evwind

Google has said it plans to launch 84 foot-long airborne wind turbines, according to Astro Teller, the head of Google X, the company's lab of so-called 'moonshot' projects.



The gigantic kite-like turbines will be launched next month, Teller said at a keynote in the Interactive portion of South by Southwest (SXSW).

Google has been working on Project Makani, as the turbines are called, but the company has been testing smaller 28-feel long models. The new ones next month will be full scale models.

According to Google, flying turbines are more efficient, but it is also not practical to build a taller ground-based turbine (Teller, which is why Google is focusing on the airborne type instead.

Each kit in Project Makani looks like an airplane's wingspan, with eight propellers to take off, and a tether to attach to the ground. Once the kit has reached the limit, it's more than enough to stop the wind, and they're flying around the sky.

This genera 600 Kilowatts of energy that is sent to earth by the tether. "If this works as designed it would be said to speed up the global move to renewable energy" said Teller.

Google has already flown the 28-foot models in Pescadero, California, one of the gustiest places in the world. There can change direction in seconds. But despite the conditions, Teller said Google has not crashed a Makani kite after more than 100 hours of flying, though that may not be a good thing.

CEO Larry Page, but none did, so they go to the full scale model testing without that knowledge.

see in this link the concept image http://www.evwind.es/2015/03/18/google- ... ines/51075

[Christophe]

The official website has changed: https://x.company/makani/

[moinsdewatt]

Alphabet abandons Makani flying wind turbines project

AFP published on 19 Feb 2020

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, will definitively separate from its subsidiary dedicated to the design of small wind turbines flying at the end of a cable, Makani, announced the general manager of this entity on Tuesday.

Created in 2006 by kite-surfers curious about the potential of sails to use wind energy, the start-up was bought in 2013 by the internet giant to be integrated into its laboratory dedicated to futuristic projects.

To see if the start-up could stand on its own two feet, Alphabet had already decided in 2019 to split Makani from the rest of its activities.

"Creating a whole new kind of wind power technology involves meeting business and engineering challenges," Makani CEO Fort Felker commented on Tuesday in a post on the specialist site Medium.

"Despite solid technical progress, the road to commercialization is longer and riskier than expected, so from today Makani will no longer be part of Alphabet," he said.

"This does not mean that this is the end of the technology that Makani has developed but it means that Makani will no longer be an Alphabet company," said the official.

Makani had already started in 2019 to collaborate with the Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell to test off the coast of Norway its product: a fine wing carrying eight mini-turbines and connected by a cable to a fastener, resembling from a distance a kite.

Shell is currently exploring solutions to further develop Makani's technology, said Felker.

https://www.connaissancedesenergies.org ... ani-200219

[Christophe]

Here, it is not because Google abandons it that it cannot stand on its own feet ... if I dare say! Yet Google rather likes technological challenges ... and humanistic (hum ...) ...

After the takeover by an oil tanker ... yes good ... That's what!

At least they knew how to be bought 2 times! Proof of maturity and a certain interest in technology.

After that I think everything has already been said about the faults of flying wind turbines!