Let's go fly a kite: British team looks to harness wind power from the skies

Former yacht designer's ambitious project intends to put huge kites flying over the sea in formation to generate clean, affordable electricity

"Oh wow! Look at that, it's really hoofing some power out now," beams Bill Hampton, looking up at his outsize kite as it swoops over a wheat field on the Essex coast. The purple prototype is, Hampton hopes, a step towards his vision of scores of huge kites flying over the sea in formation and generating clean, affordable electricity.

The test site for Kite Power Solutions (KPS) is an apt one for technology innovation, with the disused airfield lying in the shadow of one of the UK's first nuclear power stations at Bradwell, and a few flat fields away from new wind farms whose blades turn slowly in the gentle breeze.