jhn.holgate Posted July 2, 2015 Report Share Posted July 2, 2015 (edited) Google has bought Makani Power, which is developing a kite powered generator - a tethered kite or wing that has turbines on top to create power. A very weird looking beastie indeed. There's a demo video here: And an actual in-use video here: Story here: Link to news article I suppose a kite is really just a wing. And if you tether a wing, does it become a kite? Either way, very nice to see some technical development going on in power generation from kites. Edited July 2, 2015 by jhn.holgate SoutherlyBuster 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gum-nuts Posted July 2, 2015 Report Share Posted July 2, 2015 (edited) I'm not sure of the benefit over traditional wind turbines (I'm sure Tony wont like them!), I guess clean wind at 800 feet - but if it increases is it bye bye kite and truck? And if it drops I guess the robot kite turns the turbine into motors and powers the "kite" to a safe landing? Edit: Ok, I've now watched the videos with the sound! Still not sure of the benefits! I think these guys had the best idea when it comes to tethered flying... http://www.extremekites.com.au/topic/15308-flexifoil-stacker-extreme-stunt/#comment-138399 Edited July 2, 2015 by gum-nuts roddyread 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoutherlyBuster Posted July 2, 2015 Report Share Posted July 2, 2015 (edited) Being solid wing with control surfaces it could depower significantly more than a kite. I have not looked in detail how many lines go up to the wing, but would imagine the wing is controlled more like an aeorplane rather than kite lines which need to be under tension through the full depower range. I've looked closelr now, just the one line to the wing. Edited July 2, 2015 by SoutherlyBuster Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jhn.holgate Posted July 2, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 2, 2015 At least after 20 - 25 years, you're not left with a big (possibly) rusting turbine to either maintain or demolish. And the turbines I think are worth around 2 million each. I'd prefer some further research into solar panels, but that's just me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gum-nuts Posted July 2, 2015 Report Share Posted July 2, 2015 I also couldn't figure out what a Mankini had to do with renewable energy... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoutherlyBuster Posted July 2, 2015 Report Share Posted July 2, 2015 So did any one spot the what on first inspection appears to be an error on the Makani promotional web site? They claim that if the wind speed goes up by a factor 2, the power is increased by a factor 8, to me that does not make sense. It is well know if the apparent wind speed goes up by a factor 2, the net load goes up by a factor of 2^2=4, so where does x8 come from? Not that I have done the calcs, but perhaps the apparent wind is not proportional to the wind speed. The other thing that looks a bit strange is the wind speed map of the world. According to this the wind speed at 100m elevation (for conventional wind turbines) is zero in most of Queensland, that would mean no one kite surfs there which we all know is wrong. Then for the makani at 250m elevation the wind speed in QLD then jumps up to 6 to 7 m/s. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jhn.holgate Posted July 2, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 2, 2015 I also couldn't figure out what a Mankini had to do with renewable energy... I'm seriously considering banning you for that picture... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chook Posted July 2, 2015 Report Share Posted July 2, 2015 (edited) So did any one spot the what on first inspection appears to be an error on the Makani promotional web site? They claim that if the wind speed goes up by a factor 2, the power is increased by a factor 8, to me that does not make sense. It is well know if the apparent wind speed goes up by a factor 2, the net load goes up by a factor of 2^2=4, so where does x8 come from? Not that I have done the calcs, but perhaps the apparent wind is not proportional to the wind speed. The other thing that looks a bit strange is the wind speed map of the world. According to this the wind speed at 100m elevation (for conventional wind turbines) is zero in most of Queensland, that would mean no one kite surfs there which we all know is wrong. Then for the makani at 250m elevation the wind speed in QLD then jumps up to 6 to 7 m/s. There are 4 turbines so does that make it a factor of 8? As wind speed doubles the actual force increases dramatically. An easy calc I use is 5 knots x 5 =25. 7 knots x 7 =49, so 7 knots has twice the power of 5 knots and so on. This seems to make it easier for me to get my head round what kite/sail I choose, for the guestimate of the actual wind strength. Edited July 2, 2015 by Chook Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roddyread Posted September 14, 2020 Report Share Posted September 14, 2020 So if you ever wanted to go to the extreme high tech end of kite production... Now you can. Makani recently closed after too many crashes and not enough power production. However on closing, they did the right thing and open sourced a huge data archive. There's production schemes, tests, software, patents loads all open now. https://x.company/projects/makani/ It's good to share... But I still think they were mental. (Pals, I can say that) They chose an unscalable architecture. Should have gone networked kites like kite turbines instead bro. .Joel 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.Joel Posted September 14, 2020 Report Share Posted September 14, 2020 6 hours ago, roddyread said: There's production schemes, tests, software, patents loads all open now. https://x.company/projects/makani/ First of all I have no idea how you remembered this discussion, well done That page is full of some great info, I stumbled over the feature video at the bottom. When this was originally I didn't actually realise the scale/size of these things! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roddyread Posted September 14, 2020 Report Share Posted September 14, 2020 I'm very into kite generated power. Like obsessively. This is the kind of conversation I look for. Yep, those Makani kites grew a bit since the first post here ... A bit too fast according to many of the folks on https://forum.awesystems.info It's good to say hello from the really weird side of kites. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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