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W. Marc Bernsau
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Q&A
Turbine maker Vestas attracted to university research in Mass.
By Jackie Noblett
New England prepared to leverage smart grid expertise
Following the Clean Energy Council Fellows
MHT's Efrain Viscarolasaga: Preparing the smart grid for more power
With all of the uproar over some local cleantech companies’ desire to shift jobs overseas, it’s easy to forget the allure of this region to cleantech companies. For example, one of the world’s largest wind turbine makers is quite happy with the work being done in a small office just off Interstate 495.
Vestas AB, one of the largest turbine makers in the world, purchased Lunenberg power motor and generator developer ePower LLC in 2008 and used the core staff to establish its first technology office east of the Mississippi later that year. The unit’s prowess is in developing so-called direct-drive technology — where the rotor and generator rotate in one unit, eliminating the need for a gearbox.
The Danish company plans to invest further in the region. Of the 70 researchers working in the United States, about 17 are located in Hudson, where Vestas built a new facility for the ePower operation. That head count is expected to double in the coming year, company officials say. State leaders point to the growth at companies like Vestas as well as the construction of a wind blade testing center in Charlestown as evidence of a growing wind technology industry in Massachusetts.
Mass High Tech reporter Jackie Noblett spoke with Vestas vice president and local general manager William Henrickson recently about the company’s local efforts.
What is it about Massachusetts that attracted Vestas to invest here?
(ePower) is a company that has roots with MIT and has hired people locally, from Northeastern, from UMass Lowell, from WPI. The convergence of research and technology is critical to the industry going forward, and that’s what we’re doing here.
Is this also related to expectations of a growing U.S. market for wind?
All the major players are co-locating their manufacturing and production and design operations in the regions where they’re growing. Northern Europe is maturing and the U.S. market is an emerging market, and once the financial markets break free you’ll see a lot more wind.
So what is your office’s role within Vestas R&D?
Our main U.S. research center is in Houston, where they’re working on blade technology and other research. We’re more on the engineering side, working on new product development affiliated with a growing technology organization within Vestas. (Before the acquisition by Vestas) we developed the direct-drive wind turbine for Northern Power up in Vermont.
Obviously here in Massachusetts, offshore wind is a large focus. What are the challenges to building turbines for marine environment?
The industry now needs additional emphasis on the engineering challenges of building motors that big. We’ve scaled up conventional technology beyond where we thought the upper limits were 10 years ago. The marine environment, it is corrosive ... and there’s a combination of loads on the structures, both wind and the seawater. The environment is also such that you can’t get to the turbine that easily.
So is direct drive the solution to those problems?
Everyone in the industry is looking at direct drive. It answers some of the problems (of scalability), but not all of them.
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