Latest News
Welcome to our latest blog. We’ll be sharing Windlift updates covering technological progress, Executive Team Thoughts, Employee Highlights and the Airborne Wind Energy (AWE) industry. We’re excited to share our progress with you. Enjoy!
Renewable Energy Continues to Break Records in 2022
Globally, the renewable energy sector continues to break records. Solar, wind and other clean sources generated 38% of the world’s electricity in 2021, surpassing coal (36%). For the first time, solar and wind generated 10% of this share of electricity, according to research from global energy think tank Ember. Taken together, wind [...]
Windlift Engineer & Chapel Hill Native Ellie Funkhouser
Meet Eleanor Funkhouser, also known as Ellie. As one of Windlift’s tech engineers, she splits her time between designing and testing individual components and subsystems of the Airborne Power Generator (APG) and testing the entire system as a whole. She joined the team in January 2021, quickly demonstrating tenacity and creativity in solving [...]
Latest IPCC Climate Report Finds Nature as One of Our Best Solutions to the Climate Crisis
Credit: Lukasz Szmigiel The United Nations recently released a new climate report built upon a previous assessment released in February. The last IPCC climate report focused on climate change impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability; this report provides an updated evaluation of global mitigation strategies and pledges and examines emission sources. In other [...]
How You Can Take Climate Change Action
We can all play a role in combating climate change. While we need transformative change to limit warming below 2 degrees celsius, every action matters. Taking personal steps to limit your carbon footprint impacts carbon emissions and gives individuals a sense of agency. Below are a few ways to take climate change [...]
Reasons to Hope During the Climate Crisis
But first, check out a few ways to get involved in Earth Day. Earth Day is an international movement that celebrates the beauty and significance of our life-giving planet. It started in the 70s to generate support for environmental protections and has grown into an international movement that is increasingly important. There are [...]
Flying Planes on and off the Clock
A little background Thomas Burroughs has been a Windlift employee since it was only a small team of five. He joined in 2018 after graduating from NC State University, where he studied aerospace engineering. A long-time Research Triangle resident, he lives in Durham with his fiancée and two dogs: A corgi and a [...]
A Look Inside Windlift’s Unique SBIR Funding
Many startups keep the lights on with funding from venture capitalists or angel donors. Windlift is supported by both – and something else. The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program is a highly competitive program that offers financial and technical R&D support for technological innovation and private-sector commercialization. Windlift has won 5 SBIR [...]
How did Renewable Energy Become so Inexpensive so Fast?
Historically, fossil fuels dominated the global power supply because they were the cheapest energy source. This has changed dramatically in the past decade. Electricity from renewable energy is now less expensive than fossil fuels in most parts of the world. Wright's law and associated learning curves are the underlying drivers for renewables' dramatic [...]