energy founded 2006 key people saul griffith corwin hardham donald montague damon vander lind owner alphabet inc. number of employees 20 parent x slogan high capacity wind website google.com makani 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 . 1 makani was founded in 2006 by saul griffith don montague and corwin hardham . 2 it received funding as part of google.org s renewable energy cheaper than coal re c initiative . 3 makani is hawaiian for wind . 4 one of the founders corwin hardham died in 2012 at age 38 . 5 contents 1 mechanical progress for their kite system 2 see also 3 references 4 external links mechanical progress for their kite system edit 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 ; 6 many of makani power competitors have generators kept on the ground like kitegen italy . 7 the electricity is transmitted to the ground via an electrical cable within the kite s tether . 8 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. 9 see also edit list of airborne wind energy organizations references edit kirsner scott . a generator that s lighter than air and relatively light on the wallet . company history . makanipower.com . investing in a cleaner energy revolution . google.org . wagner eric 7 december 2012 . high altitude wind power . conservation . university of washington . retrieved 13 april 2014 . makani power s corwin hardham dies ; service scheduled . miles loyd 1980 http homes.esat.kuleuven.be highwind wp content uploads 2011 07 loyd1980.pdf awes museum http www.energykitesystems.net awesmuseum index.html kitegen http kitegen.com harper ben 21 march 2011 . start ups are devising kites to turn wind power into a cheap source of power . the washington post . retrieved 27 july 2011 . google acquires kite power generator . bbc news . 23 may 2013 . external links edit official website retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title makani power & oldid 743312157 categories googlerenewable energy companieskiteswind energy organizationscompanies based in alameda californiatechnology companies based in the san francisco bay areaenergy companies established in 2006renewable resource companies established in 20062006 establishments in californiagoogle acquisitionshidden categories use dmy dates from january 2016use indian english from january 2016all wikipedia articles written in indian english navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 9 october 2016 at 02 17 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view