Eastern Wind Power

UNITED STATES: Eastern Wind Power hopes to offer its small vertical-axis wind turbine (VAWT) 'in a box' as soon as 2014.

The system can be transported by helicopter in a standard container to remote areas for use by the military or during a disaster. The 50kW turbine could then be pneumatically or mechanically erected for operation using the box as its base.

On a recent snowy autumn's day, a prototype Sky Farm turbine – which uses a Siemens inverter system – was operating at the airport on Martha's Vineyard island off Massachusetts.

The turbine has three carbon-fibre blades, stainless steel components and regenerative drive braking.

Eastern claimed the turbine would be suitable for use above city skyscrapers. One issue that must still be solved, however, is how to prevent ice on the blades so the turbines are safe for pedestrians below.

Siemens, which does not make small wind turbines, said using its off-the-shelf components for distributed power held wider possibilities. It said the Sky Farm could be combined with battery storage or gas turbines in a hybrid.

Conventional or horizontal-axis wind turbines are most commonly encountered in the wind industry. In ideal conditions, one can produce a lot of energy, but the design is are less productive in turbulent wind. Vertical-axis wind turbines (VAWT), however, can capture wind energy when it is inconsistent or turbulent. With this in mind, Eastern Wind Power (www.easternwindpower.com) developed the Sky Farm 50-kW VAWT that withstands quickly changing winds in urban and rural settings. The company says the turbine works well on high-rise buildings, rooftops, pole-mounted in open areas, or as a mobile unit, and can provide power for basic needs, such as lighting.

The turbine is ideal for islands and developing countries because it can supply power in areas where electricity is scarce or expensive. What’s more, the turbine’s design allows mounting two or more close together, which would produce its namesake, a Sky Farm.

At Martha’s Vineyard Airport in Massachusetts, the VAWT proved its endurance by tolerating turbulence whipped up by aircraft. For instance, the Colgan Air twin engine-turbo prop provided a High Wind Test that generated hurricane-force winds, up to 110 mph.

A mobile version of the turbine can serve as a self-contained power station or assist other utilities feeding electricity to the grid. The technology meets the needs of disaster relief services, rural electrification micro-grid applications, rural communications-ground stations, and military defense-field operations. The unit is simple to install in the field because the hydraulic hardware for erecting the tower is adapted from a traditional fire truck, says the company. The turbine is shipped in a 20 ft. ISO container that also serves as the turbine’s foundation. Its blades are hinged at the connection joints and open like a tripod locking in an open rigid position.

The Sky Farm turbine uses three, six-meter carbon-fiber blades and stainless-steel castings for increased endurance. The company says the turbine keeps a low-noise profile compared to conventional turbines and poses less risk to birds. Also, the absence of a gearbox decreases mechanical issues.

There's a fairly robust market for small-scale distributed wind systems (SWT) Navigant Consulting projects global installations will grow from an around 85 MW in 2012 to 172 MW in 2018 with revenues topping $728 million, and $3.3 billion cumulatively from 2013-2018, especially due to growing popularity of community- and municipality-owned systems. Urban environments are another attractive market, packing a bunch of energy-producing machines on the corner of a high-rise roof.

Addressing this sector are two general types of wind turbine designs, horizontal-axis (HAWT) and vertical-axis (VAWT). Proponents of VAWTs point to benefits of working in slower wind speeds, ability to be packed closer together, and easier installation and maintenance — but VAWT's past is checkered due to unfulfilled performance claims and mechanical issues (and the industry's embrace of centralized megawatt-scale HAWT designs). Nonetheless VAWTs are still getting some attention, including several recent high-profile installations at Adobe and the NFL's Philadelphia Eagles stadium.

Last week I got a first-hand look at one startup company's VAWT product, which seeks to fill a market need for small-scale distributed power generation in both urban settings and remote and off-grid situations. Since 2010 it's been perched in a corner of the Martha's Vineyard airport (MVY), producing power.

Coming from planning and design backgrounds, Eastern Wind Power's Jonathan and Linda Haar wanted to see new distributed energy options for urban populated areas, but wanted something more robust to offer commercial-scale output vs. what they termed "vanity" 5-10 kW turbines. Ultimately they decided on a VAWT lift-phase design with an H-type rotor, but when building the prototype they realized they needed a specialized inverter. Meanwhile, Siemens' Drive Technologies division had been exploring how its systems to convert and connect kinetic energy into the grid could be applied at a smaller scale, particularly for small-scale wind and hydropower, explained Razvan Panaitescu, business development manager for distributed power generation and microgrids.

Putting the two together created EWP's 50-kW Sky Farm VAWT, shown below sitting at the airport. Here's what they tout as its key features:

– The blades and struts are made from a cross woven carbon fiber composite with internal reinforcement ribs, with critical connection points fabricated in high-strength stainless steel. (Those reinforcements were a recent design tweak, as were the struts visibly extended by several inches.) A hydrophobic material applied to the blade tips aims to to increase longevity and prevent icing; tests have been conducted atop the meteorologically formidable Mount Washington, and this winter EWP will start using a new and improved material from Harvard dubbed "SLIPS".

– Siemens is contributing the power generation and conversion components in what it calls a "motion-to-grid" package: a 55-kW generator and smart inverter with internal regenerative drive system, housed in a horse trailer next to the turbine (no previous equine tenants). Inverter output is 480 V, three-phase 60 Hz which they claim is "easily convertible" to 50 Hz and different output voltages. All the components are UL/CE listed. Siemens sees small wind, and small hydro, as perfect testbeds to show how off-the-shelf standard industrial equipment can convert and connect kinetic energy into the grid, at slower speeds and a smaller scale. There's no gearbox, and the braking system is pneumatic, both of which eliminate key wear/tear points. And the shaft bearings from NSK have been simulated for 1,000 hours of hurricane-force load and a 20-year sealed unit life.

– Theoretical models indicate a 36-38 percent efficiency, far better than a typical VAWT turbine of around 10-20 percent efficiency and comparable to the 30-40 percent of large-scale HAWT counterparts, according to Bo Tao, EWP's lead scientist. (His day job is at the Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston.) The company says this VAWT has annual output of about 45,000 kWh based on what's been seen at the MVY airport in around 13-14 MPH wind speeds; that's also roughly what they've modeled using measurements atop a 300-ft building in a Boston wind environment averaging 8 meters/sec annual wind speeds. Cut-in wind speed is 3.6 m/sec, with operations up to an auto shutdown at 32 m/sec. (Fun fact: since the VAWT at MVY has sat basically at ground level for safety testing, they had to back up a turboprop plane and gun it to simulate high winds. Everything vanished from the site except the turbine which managed splendidly, they report.)

The EWP turbine has indeed been sending electricity to the island's NStar-operated grid, for which the airport gets a monthly check for $200 — though it'd be four times that amount if they self-consumed it, Panaitescu suggested.

Initial calculations from a wind mapping study of a handful of Boston high-rises suggests that 10 of the company's 50-kW Sky Farm turbines could offset 10 percent of the energy consumed by a typical 500,000 sq. ft high-rise. That could eliminate the need for a diesel generator, or provide more usable energy than a 10,000-sq. ft. solar PV array.

The company sees opportunities beyond high-rises: islands with constant strong winds and unpredictable/inaccessible service, farms and remote industrial sites. There's even potential for decommissioned or active power plant chimneys. The company also is exploring how to fit everything into a 20-foot shipping container for use in remote locations or to establish a microgrid, or in cases of disaster relief.

The company is talks with a couple of prospective pilot customers and hopes to have something up in the field during 2014, either on a high-rise building or up on a pole (EWP has designed its own 54-foot three-section tower). Martha's Vineyard airport itself has applied for a FAA grant for up to three more of the turbines. EWP also is at the point where they're ready to welcome a sizeable manufacturing partner, and most importantly a sizeable investor from the corporate world. The company claims it has been issued six U.S. patents and has applied for more in Europe and Canada.

Having focused initially on its VAWT safety testing, and now with some of those certifications in hand (strain gauge, load testing for blades and connectors, the Siemens drivetrain) the company is turning to performance verification, and over this winter they will be calculating the VAWT's power curve. That curve plus those few safety certifications should be enough to get a pilot project going, said Linda Haar, pointing out that regions and states and even cities vary in what proof of performance they require — New York requires certification, for example, while Boston buildings merely require a stamped engineering plan. Full small-wind certification might provide a broader comparison with other small-wind technologies, but the few offerings for small-wind certifications don't necessarily agree, only a handful have been thusly "certified," and the certifications themselves aren't specifically geared for VAWT designs. NREL has examined VAWTs in the past and they're looking into it more closely now, she pointed out.

It started with a desire to influence change in the world of green energy, particularly in urban areas. On Wednesday, in the cold quiet of a November Martha’s Vineyard morning, Jeffrey and Linda Haar proved they’re well on their way to accomplishing that goal.

In 2010 the Chilmark residents, who have backgrounds in urban planning, design and large scale construction, turned their attention to the growing field of wind power. It seemed to make much more sense to generate the power as close as possible to where the power is used, they said. But doing so had certain obstacles. Most large-scale turbines can only be situated in large open areas; urban landscapes posed a problem.

“Maybe we need to design a turbine that can be used in populated areas, or something that is transportable,” said Mrs. Haar this week. “So we started with the premise that it should be commercial scale and easily accessible.”

Enter their vertical axis wind turbine at the Martha’s Vineyard Airport.

Over the past three years the couple, via their company Eastern Wind Power and their partner Siemens Industry, have tested and tinkered with the prototype turbine. The 50-kilowatt turbine has withstood hurricane force winds, the blast of a jet engine and the corrosion of salty air. Since 2011 it has been hooked up to the grid and generating power for the airport.

Now, says Mrs. Haar, they’re looking for a large-scale manufacturer to put the turbine in full-scale production. On Wednesday she and her husband invited technical journals to a press unveiling.

Mrs. Haar said she credits airport manager Sean Flynn and the Vineyard community for allowing Eastern Wind Power the space to stage their experiment.

“The Vineyard has people like us. If it’s a great idea they want to help make it happen. That doesn’t happen everywhere. It was just a great opportunity to work on it in a windy, secure space.”

Going forward, she says, Eastern Wind Power’s turbines can be placed on rooftops or pole-mounted and temporarily installed in remote areas where, say, a natural disaster has occurred. They may also be used in areas where the size, noise and potential for flickering of larger turbines make them unacceptable by community standards.

“We wanted to provide an alternative so you didn’t need to provide just [a traditional turbine] or dismiss green energy altogether,” said Mrs. Haar.

“This is a local project that has really gone far enough that hopefully it will be successful out there,” she said.

– See more at: http://mvgazette.com/news/2013/11/14/prototype-turbine-picks-speed?k=vg52962d8f07589#sthash.zD3bpexq.dpuf

Eastern Wind Power (EWP), a Cambridge-based green energy design and development company, announced Wednesday it is ready to move to production and marketing of a vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT), in partnership with Siemens Industry. Jonathan Haar, EWP president and CEO, and his wife Linda Mogelli Haar, vice president and chairman, along with representatives from their design team and Siemens Industry, held a press conference for six reporters Wednesday at the Black Dog Tavern in Vineyard Haven.

EWP developed the Sky Farm™ 50 kilowatt (kW) wind turbine with the strength and stability to withstand accelerated winds on high-rise buildings, and with the versatility and mobility to be pole-mounted in open spaces, according to the Haars. EWP's team of Cambridge and Boston based-aeronautical, mechanical, electronic and structural engineers designed, built, commissioned and tested a full-scale prototype for durability, and then followed up with a production model. Clear Carbon Components in Rhode Island manufactured both.

EWP erected its full-scale prototype Sky Farm™ 50 kilowatt wind turbine at a test site at Martha's Vineyard Airport (MVA) in August 2010, with the permission of airport manager Sean Flynn."The airport kindly gave us a secure facility, which was very important to the project," Mr. Haar said at the press conference. "We worked through all the safety testing and are now working on efficiency."We're building a solid, safe workhorse that will last 20 years," he added.

During Tropical Storm Sandy, the wind turbine withstood winds between 65 to 70 miles per hour, Mr. Haar said. It also withstood a wind test up to 110 miles per hour, using a twin engine Saab turbo prop plane at full throttle.

The airport site also proved convenient for the Haars, who divided their time between their homes in Chilmark and Cambridge during the wind turbine's testing and development. The turbine was fully commissioned with a connection to the grid in September 2011 and has been producing power for the airport ever since. In addition to wind, the airport site exposed the wind turbine to Martha's Vineyard's mix of salt air, rain and snow, which led to changes made in connection components and fittings to stainless steel, and additional waterproofing of the generator in the production model that was completed in September 2012 that replaced the prototype.

Ms. Haar credited her husband with coming up with the concept for EWP. "We came from the perspective of wanting to see a green energy option for urban populated areas," she said. "We both worked in the field of planning and design and environmental planning in Boston, and we cared very much about where we as a city and other cities were going. But there is no green energy for cities. We need a new option."

After a lot of research on the subject, they decided medium scale VAWTs in the 50- kilowatt range would work best in an urban setting and offer many advantages over a more familiar wind turbine, whose blades turn around a horizontal axis. So did Bo Tao, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at the Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston, who Ms. Haar calls one of their "secret weapons." Mr. Tao has served as EWP's lead scientist since 2009, and he developed the wind turbine concept and came up with a design.

Among their advantages, VAWTs do not have to adjust to turn into the wind, so they don't have the downtime that larger turbines do. They also do not have gearboxes and the mechanical issues that go along with those, Ms. Haar said.

"We're seeing the marketplace that it's becoming harder and harder to site big turbines, with aesthetics and noise becoming more of an issue," she said. Compared to the bigger horizontal bladed turbines, VAWTs take up less space and they are quieter.

"One of the most important applications is these turbines can be spaced closely together," Ms. Haar said. "You could put 10 to 12 on a high-rise building rooftop and have plenty of room."

The Sky Farm has three 20-foot blades, made of a cross-woven carbon fiber composite and 20 feet in diameter. Although it could be pole-mounted at any height, It was initially designed with a 54-foot pole, which brings the total height of the turbine and pole together at just under 80 feet. The pole is made in three segments, so it will easily fit into a 20-foot standard shipping container or a freight elevator. The Sky Farm's weight, including all of its components, is about 4,000 pounds.

EWP also has designed a mobile unit, described as a "turbine in a box," for use in disaster relief, remote locations in developing countries with no energy infrastructure, areas where a micro-grid can be established, and military bases or sites where it would be dangerous and expensive to transport fuel.

Ms. Haar said one of the most frequent questions she is asked is how EWP and Siemens became partners, which Siemens director of new technologies Razvan Panati explained. He said although Siemens is not in the business of producing small wind turbines, the company decided to get into the industry because it has the equipment available for such applications.

Mr. Panati and other Siemens representatives met the Haars and liked their presentation and business plan, as well as their innovative ideas, including the wind turbine's mechanical setup.

"We thought it was a fantastic opportunity for us to really distinguish ourselves from classic horizontal blade type wind turbines, that are probably not suited for the small type applications, such as targeting buildings and areas which are populated," Mr. Panati said. "So we thought, this is it, we should start trying to integrate our technologies together. We are here today telling you this is a success."

Siemens offered EWP the complete drive train, which includes a generator and smart inverter, that captures power at any wind speed without a gearbox, he explained. The generator utilizes a specialized torque motor technology that allows very low-speed rotating mechanical systems to produce power at lower speeds.

Mr. Panati said Siemens also recently added a remote access feature that enables the inverter to be controlled electronically from any point in the world. "Hopefully this will open up new small wind markets for Siemens, and it offers new smart technology we can market around the world," Ms. Haar said. Currently there is no other 50 kW VAWT on the U.S. market.

Up until now, Ms. Haar said she and her husband have funded the project with the help of Mr. Haar's mother, who made a generous investment in EWP. Many people also have donated their services to the company pro bono.

Ms. Haar said they are looking for a partner as they move towards production. Pricing for the turbine will be determined once the permanent molds are made for the turbine components, which will reduce the initial cost by about two thirds.

"Our objective is to get the cost per kilowatt to be competitive," she said.

A trip to the airport to see the Sky Farm in operation followed the press conference.

Chicago is known as the Windy City, but in truth, Boston is breezier. Beantown has the highest average wind speed of any major city in the United States, at 12.4 mph.

Does it make you wonder how much energy might be generated if wind turbines were placed atop some of its tall buildings? It makes the folks at Eastern Wind Power wonder. A maker of vertical-axis wind turbines, EWP has embarked on a project to gather wind data from 10 high-rises in Boston. It hopes to show that its turbines could be significant power producers for big-city buildings.

EWP so far has Web-based weather stations from Onset Computer Corporation on two buildings – the Equity Office Properties building at 60 State Street and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary – to measure wind speed, wind gust and wind direction. The plan is to collect data from eight more high-rises in downtown Boston by 2013.

Exactly how much wind is available is a hugely important factor in wind power. That’s because the power in the wind is proportional to the cube of its speed. So the amount of power produced rises exponentially as the wind speed increases. According to the Department of Energy, if your site has an annual average wind speed of about 5.6 meters per second – or about 12.6 mph, very close to Boston’s average – it has twice the energy available as a site with a 10 mph average.

This takes on added importance with small systems because, to be honest, they are lilliputian compared to wind’s big boys. The mammoth horizontal turbines spinning away in Texas and California and elsewhere can pump out 2 megawatts or more of power. EWP has a 50-kilowatt (kW) vertical-axis turbine.

But we are talking about windy Boston here – and wind speed climbs substantially with elevation. The 60 State Street high-rise isn’t the tallest in Boston, but soaring 509-feet heavenward it pokes well into the strong winds aloft (Mass Eye and Ear appears to be quite a bit shorter, so it will be interesting to see what the wind study turns up there.)

EWP says a collection of 10 of its 50-kW Sky Farm turbines could trim a 500,000-square-foot high-rise’s power needs by 10 percent. That estimate is based on on wind studies it did on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Green Building in Cambridge (where EWP is based). There, the company said, a single Sky Farm would generate about 45,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year – enough to power six to eight homes.

“One turbine can power a building’s electrical emergency/backup, eliminating the need for a diesel generator,” said Jonathan Haar, president of EWP. “It can also produce more usable energy than a 10,000-square-foot solar photovoltaic array.”

The smaller footprint of vertical-axis turbines is a point the company is emphasizing in its marketing; Vice President Linda Haar alluded to it in an interview with EarthTechling in November 2011 when explaining why the company was aiming to sell its products to high-rises. And, she noted, “this is a market that’s really important because urban areas demand the most energy, but also have the least options, as far as green energy.”

EWP has partnered with Siemens to develop on improving its generator and inverter system. It erected a prototype at the Martha’s Vineyard Airport in 2010 and that turbine is now grid-connected and producing power for the airport.

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Linda Haar – Eastern Wind Power, and Razvan Panati – Siemens Industry, setting up exhibit.

Andreas Hartinger – Siemens Industry and Jonathan Haar – Eastern Wind Power. Lucy, EWP’s mascot, joins the show.

Siemens Industry and Eastern Wind Power jointly exhibit Eastern Wind Power’s Sky Farm™ 50 kW VAWT and Siemens inverter system at the AWEA 2012 National Wind Power Conference in Atlanta Georgi Siemens’ Drive Technologies Division developed this technology for their motion to grid distributed power generation and microgrid systems in collaboration with EWP’s prototype development of their 50 kW VAWT

Eastern Wind Power, Inc. has designed a mobile wind energy technology for disaster relief services, rural electrification micro-grid application, rural communications ground stations, and for military defense field operations. It would establish or feed into a local grid network, assisting in filling the capacity needs of a centralized grid for various base needs, or function as a stand-alone system for field and rural power needs.

We have created an efficient, quiet and reliable vertical axis wind turbine of commercial capacity, but of small enough scale to power a small community or key service within a community. Clean water and basic lighting are two direct ways of providing basic human comforts to areas unreachable by conventional power distribution systems.

Our turbine can be used to power deep well pumps to power cisterns throughout the day and night, creating a “head” to run a small community water system or irrigate a farm. There can be battery charging stations for charging motorcycle type batteries for home use allowing: students to run lap tops; houses to run LED lights and communication equipment; rural farms to light structures and power equipment.

We have adapted our Sky Farm™ 50 kW vertical axis wind turbine to fit in, and assemble out of a 20’ ISO shipping container, using it as the turbine’s “foundation”.

• The unit is sized to be transported by ship and then by either a mid-sized tractor or helicopter.
• The mobile unit can feed a field micro-grid with the power as is required, be it 48 volt battery storage for reserve power or live time 220/480 Volt – 3 phase @ 60 or 50 Hz. feeds.
• The unit can serve as a self-contained power station, including on-board battery power storage systems, communications centers, grid distribution nodes, and mobile battery charging station.
• The turbine blades will be hinged at their connection joints and will open like a tripod, with the blades locking in the open rigid position. The turbine tower would be transported in the same container – being (3) 19’ sections designed for field assembly.

The unit is simple to install in the field as the hydraulics are adapted from a typical fire truck design to lift the turbine in place at the height appropriate for its utility and security. The trailer will have retractable outriggers for stability on any slope or terrain, locking the system in-place, thus freeing up the delivery vehicle for other transport duties.

Cambridge, Mass.-based Eastern Wind Power (EWP) is about to launch a wind turbine that could soon be spotted on roofs of urban high-rises, at remote industrial plants, or in developing countries, providing power for basic needs like drinking water and lighting.

Unlike the propeller-type horizontal axis wind turbines that are common in many parts of the world, EWP’s vertical axis wind turbine has three vertical six-meter high carbon fibre blades. The benefits of this vertical configuration include lower noise, less risk to birds, no gearboxes and their associated mechanical issues, and they can be erected closer together than traditional wind turbines.

From the outset,, EWP has focused on quality, reliability and durability in the design and development of its Sky Farm 50kW Vertical Axis Wind Turbine. Not satisfied with the bolt securing solutions they had used previously, EWP tried Nord-Lock wedge-locking washers and were amazed with the results. The idea of switching back to another solution is now unthinkable to them.

“We cannot afford failures,” says Linda Mongelli Haar, Chairman of Eastern Wind Power. “The turbine is only as strong as the weakest link, and we wanted to make sure after all our design and development work that we didn’t lose the quality by putting on nuts and bolts that weren’t going to do the job. That is why we turned to Nord-Lock. One of the important aspects of our safety work is using Nord-Lock washers, and now we don’t have to worry about anything coming loose or falling apart.”

EWP’s President and CEO Jonathan Haar came across Nord-Lock at the American Wind Energy Association Show in Atlanta in June 2012. “I was walking around the booths looking for new solutions to different ideas and there they were,” he says. “I looked at Nord-Lock’s solution and could just tell it would do what it’s supposed to do. It is very simple and elegant – and simple and elegant things tend to do their job well.”

EWP currently uses Nord-Lock NL8ss washers – 24 per turbine – to secure the blades to the struts. “If the bolts here are not properly secured you get the bolt backing out a little and it will start to vibrate,” says Jonathan. “And even if it doesn’t back out all the way, it might snap the whole blade off because you’ve allowed enough space for vibration. That vibration can throw your whole turbine out of balance.”

The company will soon be testing another size of Nord-Lock washers to secure additional crucial joints – where bolts hold the struts to the centre tower. “I think this will probably make assembly much easier,” says Jonathan. “At the moment we are using nylon locking nuts, and it takes forever to get them into position on the long threaded rod – and I’m normally hanging in the air when I’m doing it.”

After a year of what Jonathan calls “really severe safety testing,” Nord-Lock’s wedge-locking washers have lived up to expectations. “We’ve been through two hurricanes and a blizzard, and have been testing blades on top of Mount Washington for icing characteristics. We’ve checked the washers and they’ve worked great.”

Despite being a small company, EWP has attracted the attention of Siemens Industry Inc, one of the biggest players in the world wind power sector. “Siemens was looking to venture into ‘small wind’ and they wanted to prototype their inverters with a vertical axis turbine,” says Linda. “They interviewed a lot of companies and they selected us, which was a great vote of confidence.”

The next step is finding a manufacturing partner that can meet EWP’s stringent quality demands in large-scale production. “The turbine is made of extremely high quality material, which means they are not cheap to develop and build,” says Linda. “To be competitive we need a very strong manufacturing partner that can produce the same quality at scale.”

With its wind turbine tested and proven, and Siemens Industry on board, Eastern Wind Power has recently started marketing activities. The project is in particular receiving a lot of interest from markets like Hawaii and the Caribbean where the energy prices are as high as the wind speeds.

“We are also starting to get some interest from owners of high-rise buildings closer to home who understand that distributed energy will pay them back quickly and they will have a good 20 years of virtually free energy after a short break-even,” says Linda. “We are hoping to see strong sales soon, and then in about five years we expect to be a very profitable company providing wind power around the globe in urban areas, open areas and in developing countries with no energy infrastructure but a great need for power to meet basic human needs.”

James Brooks, President of Nord-Lock Inc., calls EWP “a fantastic example of a progressive original equipment manufacturer (OEM)” in the wind power segment. “In the last four years Nord-Lock in North America has seen its OEM business grow as a result of companies like EWP focusing on innovation and safety – and safety of bolted joints is our primary mission,” he says.

Besides OEMs, Nord-Lock has also seen dramatic growth of its maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) business within the wind energy sector in North America. “We see a growing trend both with the OEMs designing with safety in mind, and with utility companies improving their own reliability and safety, and both are doing so with Nord-Lock,” says James. “We are rapidly becoming an industry standard in the wind power segment.”

Eastern Wind Power (EWP) is a Cambridge, Mass.-based startup that has developed a 50-kilowatt (kW) vertical-axis wind turbine (VAWT) called the Sky Farm. The VAWT is designed specifically to be mounted on the roofs of high-rise buildings. The company has partnered with Siemens to develop its small wind generator and inverter system. The company erected its first prototype Sky Farm at the Martha’s Vineyard Airport in 2010. The turbine is now grid-connected, and producing power for the airport.

As the former director of planning and development for the city of Boston, and owner and president of a commercial construction and permitting company, Vice President and Chairman of the Board Linda Haar and her husband, President and CEO Jonathan Haar, bring a unique set of qualifications to the venture. We spoke with Linda Haar about the company’s plans for the Sky Farm.

EarthTechling: There are a lot of startup VAWT manufacturers out there. Why did Eastern Wind Power decide to concentrate on VAWTs and what makes your turbine better than others on the market?

Eastern Wind Power’s Linda Haar: We’re focused on high wind and, specifically, the kind of high wind that you get on high-rise buildings. We built the turbine strong enough to withstand that accelerated wind, but light enough to be efficient. We think this is a market that’s really important because urban areas demand the most energy, but also have the least options, as far as green energy. With the VAWT, you don’t need the same amount of space that is required for solar. We have also partnered with Siemens, and have a very smart inverter system, designed to work in high winds. The inverter system, and the light weight of the turbine and the rotor itself are what makes it very efficient.

ET: In August 2010 you erected the 50-kW Sky Farm turbine at the airport at Martha’s Vineyard. In September, the turbine was fully commissioned and grid-connected, and is now producing power for the Airport. What factors led you to choose this location, and what were the results of the test?

LH: When we wanted to find the location for our prototype, we needed a secure location with good wind that would give us daily access to the turbine without too much hassle. The community in Martha’s Vineyard is incredibly supportive of green energy, and the airport was ideal location. We went the manager and said, “Hey, we have a crazy idea,” and asked him if we could put our prototype there, and he said yes before we even left the room. They understand that airports use a lot of energy—not just in the fuel system of the planes, but they also use a lot of electricity for lighting and control systems.

They wanted to take the opportunity to support green energy options that help them and other airports adopt green energy. We installed the inverter and Siemens generator this summer, and we are now starting to get our energy curve. At this point, we haven’t had [the turbine] up long enough to have a full curve, but we have had it running long enough that we feel comfortable with the results we’re getting. That’s really been the most exciting thing to come out of this for us.

ET: What is the next step for EWP?

LH: We’ve already begun the next step. We’re working on marketing the turbine to building owners. We’ve just started our certification process, and we hope within a year we will be producing power with our first rooftop turbine. We are also working with Siemens to fine-tune the inverter, but there are really only so many changes you can make to the inverter system.

ET: Coming from an urban planning background, why is this venture important to you?

LH: I started work as an environmental planner and moved into urban planning and design because I felt that if you really want to help the environment you have to address urban areas, the ways they are built and the way they use energy. My husband was working in the private sector, managing construction projects in Boston. In our second careers, we decided we wanted to use our experience to do something concrete and hands-on to help reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and address the issue of global warming.

We are not engineers, but we knew how to bring together a team. Given our backgrounds, we had a really great community to pull from, and we were able to bring together a fantastic team of structural engineers, designers, and architects.

ET: Is there anything else that you want to make sure people know about the turbine?

LH: We have had the turbine up through two hurricanes and serious wind storms with no issues. But, because the turbine is intended to be used on high-rise buildings, want to make sure that we won’t have any icing issues at all. So, we are putting a fixed blade up on Mount Washington in New Hampshire, and we’re working with 3M to test three of their proprietary coatings see how the blade will stand up through the winter. Mount Washington has the worst weather in the world. We actually just finished taping up our blade and we’re going to put it up on Thanksgiving Day. [Note: Right after we spoke to Haar, the Mount Washington website showed that the temperature was 10 degrees and the wind was blowing at 81.5 mph, with a wind chill of -20 degrees F.]

Siemens, the German industrial giant, ispartnering with Boston, MA-based EasternWind Power on a pilot project exploringseveral small to micro-scale power generationsystems.The pilot project will take place over the courseof about six months at Martha’s VineyardAirport in Edgartown, Mass.“This is an extremely fast moving businesssegment, and our Drive Technologies Divisionis well-positioned to provide complete drivetrain solutions for OEMs targetingdecentralized power generation,” said RazvanPanaitescu, business development manager of the distributed powergeneration and microgrids sector for Siemens Drive Technologies Division.Eastern Wind Power has pioneered the so-called “Sky Farm” strategy forbundling a few dozen small wind-power turbines on the roofs of commercialor residential high-rise buildings to produce on-site distributed power inhigh-density urban areas.The pilot will focus on integrating a Siemens 55 kW permanent magnet-generator and energy-conversion system with a prototype of Eastern WindPower’sVertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT) – where the main rotor shaft isset vertically and the main components are located at the base of the turbine.Eastern Wind Power’s VAWT can reportedly generate about 45,000 kWh ofelectricity annually – equal to the electricity needed to power about sevenresidences for 12 months – when sited on a high-rise structure.

“Our 50kW VAWT can handle turbulent urban winds, runs virtually silently,does not harm avian life, and can be easily mounted and connected to a powergrid,” said Jonathan Haar, President of Eastern Wind Power. “A 10-unit SkyFarm 50 kW will generate enough electrical energy to supply about 10% of atypical 500,000 square-foot high-rise building’s electrical power needs.”The turbine is interconnected with the electric-power grid in the serviceterritory of NSTAR, the largest Mass.-based investor-owned electric and gasutility.