Minesto, a marine energy technology developer based in Sweden, is a winner of the 2025 Gizmodo Science Fair for deploying the first operational, megawatt-scale tidal energy kite in the Faroe Islands.
The question
Can we use an underwater “kite” to turn ocean tides into renewable energy?
The results
In February 2024, Minesto’s Dragon 12 tidal energy kite delivered its first electricity to the national grid in the Faroe Islands. This 40-foot-wide (12-meter-wide), 28-ton subsea powerplant is the largest and latest of three tidal energy kites Minesto has installed in the Faroe Islands since 2020. This one generates far more electricity.
Dragon 12 is called a kite because it produces electricity by “flying” underwater while tethered to the ocean floor, but it looks more like a small plane. Its wing uses hydrodynamic lift to move the kite while an onboard control system steers it in a figure-8 pattern. As it flies, a turbine shaft located at the rear of the kite turns a generator. Clean energy then travels through a cable inside the tether to a seabed umbilical, which transmits power to the onshore grid.
The figure-8 path allows Dragon 12 to accelerate faster than the current flowing past it, reducing the size of the kite and rotor necessary to generate power. Indeed, Dragon 12 is up to 15 times lighter per megawatt than other similar technologies, according to Minesto. Its design also maximizes energy production, allowing the turbine to operate in flow conditions as low as 3.9 feet per second (1.2 meters per second).
Dragon 12 produces power automatically and autonomously, Minesto’s Chief Technology Officer Bernt Erik Westre explained. Once the kite’s onboard sensors detect that flow conditions are conducive to energy generation, it’s off to the races. “We just tell the system to fly, and then it will decide whether conditions are okay to fly in, and it will start,” Westre told Gizmodo. “If they’re not anymore, it will stop.”
In the Faroe Islands, Dragon 12 operates at a depth of 164 feet (50 meters). Minesto’s tidal energy kites “cannot ever get to the surface, unless we detach them with a special tool,” Westre said. Unlike fixed-bottom wind turbines, tidal energy kites are invisible from the shoreline, and ships can safely sail over them. This, coupled with the fact that these power plants can operate in low-flow conditions, opens up a much larger marine renewable energy market, Westre explained.
Within the first two weeks of testing in the Faroe Islands, Minesto verified Dragon 12’s functionality and power production performance. The kite has been delivering clean energy to the national grid ever since, with a 25% increase in power output after Minesto lengthened its tether in May.
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