Alphabet ends project for flying wind turbines

Alphabet will not continue with Makani, a company experimenting with energy kites. The maker of flying wind turbines has been part of the Google X experiments division since 2013 and became an independent company last year.

According to Makani, the company has made significant technological progress, but the road to commercializing the technology has turned out to be more expensive and complicated than hoped. That’s why Alphabet stops Makani.

Makani continues to exist, but no longer has the support of Google’s parent company. A year ago, when Makani was promoted to an independent company from Google’s X division, a partnership was set up with Shell. The oil giant says it is now looking at options to continue with Makani.

Makani was founded in 2006 by a group of kite surfers who had the idea to make energy kites. The purpose of this is to save material that is used in a wind turbine to make the high structure on which the turbine is placed. The energy kites should also provide a solution for offshore wind farms where the water is too deep to install ordinary wind turbines. The energy kites then work with floating platforms.

In 2013, Makani was acquired by Google X. At the time of that acquisition, the company had a demo kite that could generate 20kW. Over the past seven years, Makani has developed larger models including those capable of generating up to 600kW. That energy kite was tested last year off the coast of Norway.