Google’s flying power plant experiment ends despite innovation

How can clean energy be efficiently produced? Makani Power, a company building flying power plants, presented one idea. Over the years, it tested several different prototypes, but the company, which was acquired by Google, eventually shut down.

Makani Power's idea addresses issues related to ground-based wind turbines. Their construction is limited by factors such as the availability of suitable land and regulations governing the distance of turbines from residential buildings.

The efficiency of ground-based turbines is also affected by variable wind, which doesn't always blow with sufficient force. A solution to these limitations was proposed by Makani Power, founded in 2006.

Instead of building ground-based energy infrastructure, Makani Power decided to elevate the plant to a height of several hundred feet. By adjusting the operational altitude of the plant, it became possible to seek optimal wind conditions, maximizing its potential.

The flying power plant takes the form of a motor glider combined with a kite. It takes off and ascends vertically with its tail pointed down. After reaching the desired altitude, the tethered "glider" begins to circle, and the wind propels the turbine rotors. The electricity is transmitted to the ground via a cable.

Generating energy at altitude has certain limitations—the mass of the generators must first be elevated hundreds of feet above the ground (Makani's competitors solved this problem by leaving the generators on the ground).

Makani Power was connected to Google from the beginning. Founded in 2006 with a grant awarded by Google under the RE>C program (Renewable Energy cheaper than Coal), it was acquired by Google in 2013 after the death of one of its founders and incorporated into the portfolio of initiatives developed under Google X. This is a research center where Google develops promising, innovative technologies.

Although the increasingly larger prototypes built by Makani worked—though one was lost—and the company was invested in by Shell, among others, in 2020, Alphabet, which emerged from Google's restructuring, decided to close Makani Power. In an official statement, the company announced that the commercialization of the invention was more complicated than expected.

Despite the closure of Makani Power, Alphabet decided to publish the technical documentation of the developed equipment, make the software source code available, and declared the abandonment of patenting the developed solutions to enable anyone interested to continue working on flying power plants.