Print
Email
Print Edition Stories
W. Marc Bernsau
MHT's Galen Moore: N.E. firms target individual carbon footprints
New England prepared to leverage smart grid expertise
MHT's Efrain Viscarolasaga: Preparing the smart grid for more power
Looking to tap into the local engineering and business community as it expands its product lines, a Vermont wind turbine technology company opened its first engineering and business office in Cambridge this week.
For Northern Power Systems, based in Barre, Vt., the anticipated expansion is key to the company’s efforts to step into the lucrative utility-scale wind business and compete with some of the largest turbine makers in the world. The company is starting to demonstrate commercial success in its smaller turbines for businesses and institutions, but executives acknowledge large-scale wind is an entirely different animal.
“The profit strategies in the utility-scale business are different than the community-scale business, but the core technology delivers into the high-growth global market of utility-scale wind,” said Northern Power CEO John Danner before the facility’s grand opening Jan. 25. “There’s a natural connection between Vermont and Boston, and we believe we can tap into the Boston-area engineering and business community to grow quickly.”
That core technology, so-called direct drive permanent magnet technology, enables Northern Power to build turbines without the traditional gearboxes that grind down over the years. It is installed in Northern Power’s 100-kilowatt turbines and will be used as the company begins to prototype its 2.2 megawatt turbine. The company plans to hire engineers in Cambridge to work on developing and testing that prototype this year, with the hopes of beginning commercial pilot testing in 2011.
Danner said a handful of Northern Power’s 158 employees are working in Cambridge now, including some Boston-area executives, but would not outline specific growth plans for the office. He said the company has no intention of moving headquarters from Vermont.
The company, backed by Boston venture capital firm RockPort Capital Partners as well as investment firm Allen and Co., would not disclose revenue. In October 2009, Northern Power disclosed in an SEC filing it was in the midst of raising $45 million.
Northern Power is one of a handful of wind technology companies setting up shop and growing in Massachusetts. Vestas AB, the Danish company and one of the largest producers of wind turbines in the world, established an R&D center in Hudson last year, and local officials say it plans to double its 17-person operation in the coming year. FloDesign Wind Turbine in Wilbraham announced last week it had closed a $34.5 million Series B funding round from West Coast VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers among others on top of its $8.5 million ARPA-E contract with the U.S. Department of Energy.
With energy engineering centers like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a federally funded wind blade testing facility in Charlestown under construction, industry watchers expect the area to continue to be a center for wind technology development.
“In the world of wind, it’s hard to compete with the heavy machinery and manufacturing infrastructure of the Midwest and the West, but in terms of the intellectual property that goes into wind technology, that’s where we should be a leader,” said Alexander “Hap” Ellis III, general partner at RockPort.
RSS Feeds
Comments
Please Login/Register to post comments.
No comments have been added or approved.