In 2024, engineers lowered a 28-ton underwater kite off the Faroe Islands, and it began generating up to 1.2 megawatts of electricity by flying figure-eight loops through the tide at speeds faster than the tide itself. The machine is named Dragon 12 and made by the Swedish company Minesto. On February 9, 2024, it generated its first electricity for the Faroese national grid. According to Minesto, the kite is 12 meters wide, weighs 28 tons, and flies a figure-eight path while tethered to the seabed and steered by the tidal current passing under it. It uses no fuel, and no fixed turbine on the seabed waits for the tide to pass to turn it. If thinking about tidal power usually means a big stationary turbine stuck on the seabed, this one doesn't work like that, and it's worth knowing why.
The trick that lets a machine outrun the water pushing it
