Type Subsidiary Owner Alphabet Inc. Founder Saul Griffith Motto High Capacity Wind Acquisition date May 23, 2013 | Industry Wind Energy Website Google.com/Makani Founded 2006 Number of employees 20 Parent organizations X, Alphabet Inc. | |
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Key people Saul Griffith, Corwin Hardham, Donald Montague, Damon Vander Lind Profiles | ||
Google x acquires makani power for kite like airborne wind turbines
Makani Power is an Alameda, California-based company that developed airborne wind turbines with the support of Google X and the U.S. Department of Energy office of ARPA-E. Makani is a leader in the development of airborne wind power extraction systems. Makani was founded in 2006 by Saul Griffith, Don Montague, and Corwin Hardham. It received funding as part of Google.org's Renewable Energy cheaper than Coal (RE<C) initiative. "Makani" is Hawaiian for "wind." One of the founders, Corwin Hardham, died in 2012 at age 38.
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Mechanical progress for their kite system
In order to meet its goal of producing low-cost renewable energy, the Makani kite-energy system uses autonomous tethered wings which fly in a circular path and generate electricity via wind turbines mounted upon the main wing, a method already in public domain; expert Miles Loyd in 1980 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; many of Makani Power competitors have generators kept on the ground, like KiteGen, Italy. The electricity is transmitted to the ground via an electrical cable within the kite's tether. Several patent applications have been made; some have been granted.
On May 23, 2013, Makani Power was acquired by Google and will be folded into Google X.