For the world to meet its growing need for low-cost clean energy at industrial scale and achieve its decarbonization targets, land-based onshore wind energy must be a significant, increasingly large part of the electricity generation mix – as much as 20-41% by 2050 according to BloombergNEF and the International Energy Agency (IEA).

But there is a challenge. The most efficient and cost-effective wind turbines have enormous blades – some longer than a football field. That makes them extremely difficult, if not impossible, to deliver and deploy because bridges, tunnels and road curves literally get in the way.

Radia, founded in 2016, publicly launched today with plans to meet this challenge by designing, building and operating the world’s largest aircraft. This unique aircraft will enable the deployment of the largest and best-performing wind turbines of the present and future to locations currently inaccessible to wind energy at a scale and speed that was previously impossible.

Radia’s aircraft, called WindRunner, will be able to fly large turbine blades and other components directly to wind farm sites. In addition, Radia will lead onshore wind energy expansion in partnership with industry leaders, and work with development partners to create new onshore wind farms.

The result will be widespread availability of consistent, low-cost clean energy for the grid, green fuel production and commercial power users such as data centers. Radia will help meet escalating demand for carbon-free electricity, grow the wind energy market, create compelling business opportunities in renewables and help the world meet its decarbonization goals.

Radia has received nearly $100 million in funding from sources including LS Power, Good Growth Capital, Capital Factory, Caruso Ventures and ConocoPhillips.

“Radia will create a step-function improvement for onshore wind in profitability, lower cost, and higher consistency. This will result in more wind projects, more green fuel projects, lower energy price, more profits, and more money being invested in the energy transition,” Radia CEO Mark Lundstrom said.

Radia CEO: Initiatives will drive down costs, make renewables more profitable, meet grid demand and drive clean energy progress

Radia launches as demand on the grid grows and as its capacity and reliability are in doubt. The global data center market will grow at a rate of more than 10% a year from 2023 to 2030. U.S. data centers alone will consume 33 GW by 2030, largely on the back of surging AI use. The growing use of EVs will further add to the demand. All this is happening as the grid struggles with reliability, as the gap between demand and power generation capacity further widens and as reliability is further challenged as a result of climate-driven severe weather such as the 2021 Texas ice storm.

According to Lundstrom, Radia will answer those grid demands as well as the renewables industry’s need for growth and profitability alongside the commercial and societal need for clean power.

“Offshore turbines are more than two times as powerful as onshore turbines because they are bigger,” he said. “If we could move these large turbines onshore, they would be twice as profitable and open up three times more land for economically viable wind farms. Why not put them onshore? Because literal roadblocks stand in the way.

“Radia will respond by building WindRunner to overcome these barriers, bring the benefits of offshore wind onshore, and deliver what we call GigaWind – the largest land-based turbines today and the even larger ones of the future,” Lundstrom continued.

“The result will be highly efficient wind energy at enormous scale. From a business perspective that means that the onshore wind industry’s internal rate of return will double, attracting much more capital to renewables. From an energy security and environmental perspective, it means lowest cost clean energy to power the grid, to power commercial applications such as data centers and hard to decarbonize industries such as steelmaking, and to generate green molecules – green hydrogen, green ammonia and sustainable aviation fuel. GigaWind will allow us to reduce cost and increase generation consistency, resulting in as much as a 35% cost reduction – which in turn will help the world to meet its decarbonization targets.”

Radia will remove barriers to deploying the largest, most efficient onshore wind turbines

Radia’s goal is to unlock the potential of onshore wind by removing barriers to its deployment. The largest wind turbines are the most energy-efficient – doubling the length of a turbine blade roughly quadruples its power output. But their size restricts them to offshore use.

Radia’s WindRunner aircraft, capable of landing on short, semi-prepared runways including those made of packed dirt, will be purpose-built to deliver these large blades and other components directly to onshore wind farm sites – greatly expanding the number of locations available for large turbines and enabling onshore wind to scale. Opportunities include reducing transmission costs and increasing reliability by building wind energy sites closer to demand, creating hybrid wind/solar sites to produce clean power around the clock and throughout the year, and generating the large amounts of clean electricity needed to produce green hydrogen.

WindRunner’s design supports its specialized mission

The innovative design of WindRunner only requires a 6,000-foot semi-prepared dirt or gravel landing strip at a wind farm to deliver its payload. This also enables it to land at almost any commercial airport around the world. WindRunner will be 356 feet long and its volume is 12 times that of a 747, and an overall length of 356 feet to carry the largest payloads ever moved by air.

Radia plans to produce a fleet of certified aircraft at Radia’s U.S. assembly site. WindRunner is more than halfway through the time required to design, build and certify an aircraft.

Partnerships will drive development

Radia has partnered with leading aerospace firms to design and build WindRunner, and with wind turbine manufacturers to deploy large onshore turbines. Radia does not manufacture wind turbines; rather, Radia has partnered with the world’s leading wind turbine manufacturers to deliver their finest products of today and tomorrow to more places. Radia refers to this as GigaWind, and will partner with farm developers to build new sites – including in low-wind locations where the large turbines will be more efficient and effective – resulting in an expanded onshore wind market that generates more clean power.