Google Kites Could Be Power Source Of The Future
ALAMEDA (CBS SF) -- It's loud. It's big. And it's supposed to be a kite. A kite that makes electricity.
Richard Bangert keeps a keen eye on everything that happens on Alameda Point. He writes the Alameda Point Environmental Report Blog and says, "It's a flying wind turbine is really what it is."
It's a research project sponsored by Google.
The idea is that, while tethered to a ground station, it flies using eight electric motors, kinda like a big drone, up into strong wind and starts gliding. Then the eight motors convert to generators that pass electricity back to the ground via a powerful electrical tether.
The goal is to produce enough energy to power 300 homes per kite. But what goes up must come down. "Sometimes they're practicing docking maneuvers which I think is probably the trickiest part," says Bangert.
When the wind dies the kite is supposed to return by itself to a docking tower. Technicians are working on the large scale example, getting it ready for more testing.
Just beyond the security fence, Dave Lopez runs his roofing business. He says the Google kite flies most every afternoon. But google isn't saying much about it. Lopez says, "They're pretty secretive about what they're doing out here but, yeah, they're here, paying rent."
Bangert says he has learned that the project may be headed to the Hawaiian Big Island for full scale testing sometime early next year.