Green Tech

BOSTON--Start-up FloDesign Wind, one of a number of companies looking to shake up the wind turbine business, said a prototype of its jet engine-inspired turbine was three times more efficient at converting wind to usable energy than traditional designs.

The Massachusetts-based company is seeking to raise a series B round of $25 million later this year to deploy and test the real-life performance of its 150-kilowatt turbines, said CEO Stanley Kowalski III at the Cleantech Forum conference here on Thursday.

FloDesign Wind last year was spun out of aerospace engineering company FloDesign, which has supplied components used in military helicopters and fighter planes. Using its expertise in aerodynamics, the company is developing a wind turbine that more resembles a jet engine than a typical three-blade turbine.

Its plan is to develop relatively small turbines and market them for use by businesses, communities, or wind farm developers. The company is now testing prototypes, a process that will take at least a year, Kowalski indicated.

"I think it's exciting that there's an oligopoly (among wind turbine suppliers)," he said during a panel on Thursday. "There is a resistance to change and that's how things disrupt and we hope to be one of the disruptors."

Utility-scale wind farms typically use giant wind turbines capable of turning out one or two megawatts of electricity--enough to supply hundreds of homes. By contrast, FloDesign wind--along with a other wind challengers--is developing its turbine for use in locations not well suited for large turbines, such as mountain ridge lines, or to customers that want to make power on site, such as municipalities or businesses, Kowalski said.

FloDesign Wind estimates that it can produce power at about 40 percent cheaper than traditional turbines, although the performance depends on the location. Part of the lower cost is from being able to extract more usable energy from the available wind--the company tested a prototype of its turbine at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology earlier this year and found that it delivered a three times improvement over traditional designs, Kowalski said.

The turbine is built around a fan and a shroud that surrounds it. It's designed so that air passes through the fan blades and around the edges of the shroud. This creates a mix of two air speeds at the back of the unit, with fast air going around the edges of the shroud and slow air passing through the blades. When the two air flows meet, the rapid mixing causes air to be pulled through the turbine, Kowalski explained. The electricity is generated at the tips of blades rather than using a gear box.

The product, which has a 60-foot diameter, is being made so that it can be transported onto a standard truck bed, which should make installation cheaper and easier than large turbines. The company expects that it will be less dangerous to birds and bats because it will be easier to see, Kowalski said. He said it should be quieter than traditional turbines as well.

Taking on incumbents
FloDesign Wind is among a number of start-up wind companies trying to crack into the wind market by introducing different product designs and by targeting different customers than the large suppliers, such as Siemens, Vestas, and GE, which sell to large-scale wind farm developers.

Incumbents have made turbines larger and larger over the years to generate more power from an existing location and bring down the cost of delivered electricity. There have been attempts to make mid-size turbines big enough to supply a school or community using the traditional three-blade wind turbine design. But there have been technical problems and those projects which typically have a higher cost per kilowatt to install, according to a report from the National Renewable Energy published last year.

New companies, however, are entering the mid-size turbine field, including FloDesign Wind, OptiWind, and BroadStar Wind Systems. Developers envision that the machines could be deployed in existing wind farms among larger turbines, at a big-box stores, or for locations where there isn't enough land available.

"For the first time, we can build a turbine that can compete on price with big turbines at small scale--it's like the PC versus the mainframe," said Kowalski.

A more distributed model of wind generation addresses one of the biggest problems today in wind: having the transmission lines to bring megawatts worth of electricity to places where it is consumed. T. Boone Pickens, for example, had to delay its planned wind farm in Texas because a lack of transmission.

With its second round of funding, FloDesign Wind is seeking partnerships to help bring the product to market, Kowalski said. The company raised a series A round of $6 million from Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers and is hoping to close its second round by the end of the year. It has also received funding from the Department of Energy.

The company has already gotten interest from at least one utility to use its turbine, Kowalski said, although he also said that he expects utilities overall will be slower to adopt new wind technologies.

Call it wind power for the neighborhood.

Some companies are trying to stake out a middle ground in wind power by making mid-size turbines big enough for a school or big-box retailer to use, but not so big that they require a convoy of trucks to be delivered.

Distributed wind generation with medium-size turbines runs counter to the prevailing trends in the industry. In the past several years, turbines have gotten bigger and bigger to lower the cost of generated electricity. At the opposite extreme, there is rapid growth in sales of the small wind machines designed for a single home.

A new shape in wind?

(Credit: Optiwind)

But mid-size turbine advocates say if the industry can produce an economically attractive product, there's a large potential market.

Optiwind, a company formed two years ago to make mid-size turbines, is designing a machine to work in places with only a fair, or "Class 2," wind resource found in places like its home state of Connecticut. Potential customers could be schools, wastewater treatment plants, or businesses.

"We've designed systems to work in Class 2 areas, which happens to be where most of us live and work," said David Hurwitt, vice president of marketing at Optiwind. "I'm guessing there (are also) a lot of Wal-Marts in more rural areas where there's lots of wind and land."

Placing wind turbines near people--be it in suburbs or even rural farms--is contentious in many communities as people worry about noise, aesthetics, or flickering light. At the same time, the growing interest in cleaner forms of energy for environmental, economic, or political reasons has more people exploring on-site wind power.

Optiwind is developing turbines--slightly less than 200-feet tall--rated at 150 kilowatt or 300 kilowatts, aimed at organizations that have an electricity bill of at least $100,000 a year. Tied to the grid, these turbines cut electricity bills and give the purchaser a predictable cost of electricity, which can be very attractive to an organization like a school, Hurwitt said.

A 150-kilowatt turbine would cover a portion of the electricity needs of an office building or school. By contrast, typical utility-scale turbines are rated at 2,500 kilowatts or 3,000 kilowatts, generating enough electricity at capacity to power hundreds of homes and stores.

Concentrating wind
Optiwind's turbine eschews the traditional three-blade design and uses a silo-like structure with fans on either side. When the wind hits the structure, it curls over the surface and enters the fans at a higher density to produce more power, Hurwitt explained.

FloDesign Wind Turbine is another company building a mid-size turbine using technology adapted from jet engines. The company, which is funded by venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, is in the process of working on a prototype turbine that also works on the principle of packing more power into available wind.

Images: Distributing wind power in the neighborhood

Like Optiwind's turbine, FloDesign seeks to manipulate air movements so that wind blows faster through turbines to make more power in a smaller space.

"A bunch of other companies are experimenting with different types of wind acceleration. The idea is to improve the concentration of wind, which is the fuel you're working with," Optiwind's Hurwitt said.

Optiwind, which raised a series A round of venture capital from Charles River Ventures last year, plans to build and test its first turbine this year and hopes to launch a commercial product in 2011.

Steel in the ground
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory late last year published a report that found that community-owned wind installations can bring advantages to municipalities and can ease the load on the power grid. But these types of installations--and the machines suited for them--face a number of technical and financial challenges.

When mid-size turbines use the traditional three-blade wind turbine design, they suffer from having a higher capital cost per kilowatt to install and higher maintenance costs, according to the NREL report.

Northern Power, based in Barre, Vt., is managing to sell a mid-size turbine using a three-blade design. Inside, though, it uses a different drivetrain technology than its larger, utility-scale counterparts.

Instead of the typical gear box, its Northwind 100, which is rated at 100 kilowatts, has a direct drivetrain and a generator that uses permanent magnets, which is quieter and more reliable than other designs, said Northern Power CEO John Danner. "Reliability is the name of the game when you are selling to school principals or town mayors--they don't have maintenance departments to keep things up and running," Danner said.

With good wind, high electricity costs, and good incentives, the payback on a 100-kilowatt turbine can be as little as five years, Danner said.

NIMBY or welcome?
Hyannis Country Gardens in Cape Cod went through the rigmarole of erecting a Northern Power wind turbine earlier this year.

One of the store's owners, Diana Duffley, spent almost three years getting the necessary permitting, paying for studies on light flickering and acoustics, and hosting town meetings. After about four months, the turbine produced more electricity than the garden center consumes, with the excess generating about $1,200 worth of electricity.

Neighbors were initially concerned about how the turbine, which has a 120-foot tower, would look and the noise (the turbine is quieter than the garden center's irrigation system). Over time, more people became interested and supportive, she said.

"People are scared of wind. People are trying to get the Cape Wind (offshore farm) project and it's an extremely controversial subject on the Cape. I feel by doing this I can reduce people's fear of wind," Duffley said. "Here, people can see wind power done right."

Michelle Kaufmann Designs, a company formed to sell pre-built green homes, is shutting down, a victim of deflated housing prices and the credit industry meltdown.

The Oakland, California-based company installed about 40 energy-efficient single-family homes that were prefabricated in a factory near Seattle. The company had hundreds more that were in the planning stages but it was unable to deliver them, in part because of the difficulty of financing new construction.

"We have always known that to pull off our mission, it requires scale. We always believed it would be our company to do the scaling. We were well on our way to do so. However, in this current economic climate, scaling for a small company has proven to be difficult," wrote Kaufmann on the company blog on Wednesday.

A prefab green building with integrated solar panels from Michelle Kaufmann Designs.

(Credit: James Watts)

In response to a query, Kaufmann said the company is closing but the timing has not yet been settled.

She said she was hopeful that she will be able to continue working on sustainable home designs. "The underlying concept works. Healthy, efficient and well-designed homes need to be accessible for all," she wrote.

There are a number of green businesses founded in the past five years that are struggling in the economic downturn. Energy related investments have gone down sharply, while companies in the housing sector, like Michelle Kaufmann Designs, are vulnerable to the real estate crash.

(Credit: Cool Hunting)

That hat you see to the right is smokin'. No, it literally is. Chilean fashion designer Alexandra Guerrero made it from recycled cigarette butts.

Through her new company, Mantis, Guerrero combines purified smokes with natural wool to form a raw, textured material that can be woven into garments with a surprisingly appealing modern macrame flair.

Of course, as cute as the finished products may be, it's hard to imagine nonsmokers wearing Guerrero's creations without experiencing a significant ick factor. Still, you have to applaud the designer's creative contribution to the everyday-objects-from-recycled goods oeuvre.

"This project began as an idea for my thesis," she told the blog Cool Hunting. "We always wanted to do sustainable design but we didn't want to do something that was already seen, so we started thinking of a waste that was unnoticed and then we thought of cigarette butts."

The clothes can be purchased via e-mail from the Mantis Web site and range in price from $50 for a hat to $125 for a sweater. Hey, you'd probably pay more for a sweater at Bloomingdales or BCBG. And you wouldn't be helping to clean up the streets.

(Credit: Cool Hunting)

Makers of mobile phones produce few "green" models with biodegradable, recycled, or fully recyclable materials. And although most vendors offer recycling options, less than five percent of the world's handsets will be recycled ethically in the end, according to a report released by ABI Research Monday.

Cell phones are a growing source of potentially toxic electronics waste. Among some 150 million handsets retired every year, fewer than 20 percent are recycled, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Nokia's Remade concept phone would use recycled and recyclable materials inside and out.

(Credit: Nokia)

However, it's unprofitable for most companies to release dedicated eco-friendly models on a massive scale, the ABI report suggested.

"Instead, the effort is towards compliance and the trickling down of proven green elements throughout entire product lines," Kevin Burden, the firm's research director, said in a statement.

Expanded regulation and corporate initiatives have reduced the use of toxic ingredients in electronics. The European Union's Reduction of Hazardous Substances rules have pushed nearly all major vendors to cut or exclude heavy metals, PVC, and brominated flame retardants.

ABI Research cited Samsung, Nokia, and Sony Ericsson as advancing efforts to make mobile phones even greener. Those brands also were at the top of the heap in the latest quarterly Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics.

Samsung released three models encased in corn-based plastic this summer in Asia and Europe.

Among this year's concept designs, Nokia's Remade flip phone cell uses recycled cans, plastic bottles, and car tires. Nokia says that up to 60 percent of the metal in its available handsets comes from recycled materials.

Sony Ericsson described in September a GreenHeart concept comprising recycled and plant-based plastics. If produced, it would consume only 3.5 milliwatts in standby mode.

A notable entrant in this year's Greener Gadgets Design Competition was the Bamboo concept handset. If buried in the ground, it would biodegrade, freeing embedded bamboo seeds to sprout a plant.

The ABI report notes a Nokia survey in which 76 percent of respondents said they preferred to buy from businesses that promote environmental responsibility.

Various other consumer polls have indicated that a small but growing percentage of shoppers seek to buy green electronics, and some will accept a price premium.

The styles from Europe this year are decidedly green and small.

Designer Gordon Murray, best known for his work on Formula One racing cars, detailed on Monday a new city car design called the T.25 that is aimed at reducing congestion and lowering pollution.

The planned T.25 in green compared with (going left to right) a VW Golf, a Fiat 500, a Smart Car, and a Mini Cooper.

(Credit: Gordon Murray Design)

Compared even with existing compact cars, the T.25 will be small: it can be parked headlong against the curb, allowing three cars to fit in one parking space.

Gordon Murray Design is about halfway through its two-year planning process and plans to have a prototype on the road early next year.

To lower the car's carbon footprint, the company has rethought the cradle-to-grave lifecycle of the car. For example, many of the parts, including the capacity and body, can be recycled and the manufacturing process is being set up with a minimal number of parts to reduce energy use during fabrication.

The first versions of the car will run on either gas or diesel and get about 60 miles per gallon, the company told Greentech Media.

No more driving around the block to wait for a space. Three T.25's fit in the space for one car.

(Credit: Gordon Murray Design)

The company intends to work with outside manufacturers to lower the cost and sell the car to city dwellers in Asia and Europe for between $10,000 and $11,000, it told Greentech Media.

Overall, the car should have low or zero emissions, the company says.

Compact cars are already more popular in Europe and Asia than in the U.S. Automakers have helped create demand for SUVs and trucks as passenger cars. But with rising fuel prices and growing environmental awareness, city cars appear to be staging a comeback.

The Smart Car is already cruising European and American streets. And Think Global from Norway intends to market its all-electric city car, called the Think City, in Europe and the United States next year.

Scores rose from an average of 4 points to peak at 6.6 last September, and then fell back to 4 as the watchdog group toughened its criteria.

(Credit: Elsa Wenzel/CNET Networks)

Nintendo is the least eco-friendly electronics maker, and Microsoft is barely better, according to Greenpeace. The environmental group rated the practices and designs of gadget makers lower than ever in its eighth quarterly report card (PDF).

Only two corporations scored above 5 out of 10 possible points in the report released Wednesday, down from 14 companies in March. Apple, for one, tumbled to 4.1 points in June after earning 6.7 in March more than a year after Steve Jobs' highly-publicized pledge to remove toxic ingredients from products and improve product takeback options.

Among the paltry few brands whose scores have improved is Nintendo, which ranked last with a .8 score. That was better than .3 in the spring and zero in December 2007. Greenpeace nailed the game console maker for failing to phase out toxic chemicals and for neglecting to help customers recycle.

A quick comparison of present and past scores may make it seem as if consumer electronics makers are reversing their progress since Greenpeace released its report in 2006.

That's because the eco-watchdog has raised the bar with the June version of its rankings.

The group is weighing more heavily the reduction of toxic chemicals and power hunger of gadgets, in addition to each brand's e-waste practices.

As for the latest scores, Nokia would have been at the top of the heap, had it not lost a point for failed recycling in India.

Sony and Sony-Ericsson tied for the top slot with 5.1 points each, largely for efforts to reduce plastic ingredients such as PVC and phthalates.

With a middling 4.1 score, Apple won marks for removing the same potential hazards from key products including iPods, iMacs, and the MacBook Air, and as well as for taking mercury out of the MacBook Air and some MacBook Pros. Apple has reported a 9.5 percent recycling rate on products sold seven years ago.

By any measure, Microsoft continued to show up near the bottom of the heap. It did not set goals to eliminate PVC or hazardous flame retardants, and it ranked near the bottom of the Greenpeace ratings. The only bright point in Greenpeace's estimation was in Microsoft's timeline to eliminate toxic phthalates from gadgets by 2010.

Despite the dismal-looking scores, those in the electronics sector are increasingly making concerted efforts to create less polluting products.

There's still a long way to go before PCs and gadgets of every stripe stop wasting power and winding up in landfills or e-scrap waste yards.

But for much of this young century, at least, most big, global names in the business have been complying with European rules to reduce hazardous substances, such as lead from solder in circuit boards and mercury from monitors.

In addition, designers are playing with modular designs and biodegradable materials that can easily be taken apart or broken down. Efforts are also on the rise to create universal power supply standards to stop phantom power waste.

Greenpeace aims to keep electronics makers on their toes with its rankings system.

The wind power business, dominated by international conglomerates deploying mature technology, is a tough nut to crack.

A small Massachusetts-based start-up, FloDesign Wind Turbine, this week won two clean-energy competitions with a "shrouded turbine" design that it says can generate three to four times more electricity than today's hulking wind turbines.

FloDesign Wind Turbine says its "shrouded turbine" is three to four times more productive than traditional blade turbines.

(Credit: FloDesign Wind Turbine)

The company has gotten attention from Al Gore in his role as partner at venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, according to news Web site Xconomy which cited an unnamed source.

FloDesign Wind Turbine CEO Stan Kowalski III, who is traveling in California, was not immediately available to comment on Thursday.

FloDesign Wind Turbine's design draws on its jet engine expertise from parent company, aerospace engineering firm FloDesign.

In a video (embedded below), the company describes its turbine design, which takes a radically different approach than the rotor-based wind turbines that dominate the market now.

FloDesign Wind Turbine's design resemble a jet engine, an approach that allows it to capture much more wind energy while taking up less space than traditional turbines.

When wind hits a turbine, it's constructed so that different air flows create a rapid-mixing vortex. A fin directs it to face the direction of the wind to maximize the amount of energy it receives.

The company said its machines can be used for utility-scale wind farms or corporate customers.

On Monday, the company won a prize valued at more than $100,000 in cash and services from the MIT Enterprise Forum Ignite Clean Energy competition. On Tuesday, it won the MIT Clean Energy Entrepreneurship Prize competition, which had a top prize of $200,000.

Software plays a key role in the clean-tech world, whether helping consumers size up their carbon footprints and crunch the costs of solar panels, or aiding manufacturers in reducing toxicity throughout the supply chain.

Autodesk unveiled an add-in in April to enable designers using prototyping software Inventor to calculate the carbon emissions of an array of products.

Autodesk Inventor's Sustainable Materials Assistant can estimate a product's toxicity, carbon footprint, and capability to be recycled.

(Credit: Autodesk)

The Sustainable Materials Assistant, available as a preview through Autodesk Labs, also adds up data about the toxicity and recyclability of materials used, and how the final result might comply with regional regulations.

Users must populate data fields with information about toxic ingredients, regulations, and the like. Autodesk Inventor 2009 then makes calculations about the overall ecological impact, which the designer or engineer can adjust.

Unverferth Manufacturing Company used the add-in to mock up a soil tiller for farms that would release less CO2 while digging up dirt.

Designers used Autodesk Inventor to create this model tiller that disturbs topsoil less than others.

(Credit: Unverferth Manufacturing)

Adobe brags of Photoshop helping to welcome an era of digital photography that wastes fewer trees and toxic chemicals. Similarly, Autodesk boasts that its software lets designers waste fewer materials on physical prototypes. In addition to hearing of such indirect ecological benefits of using software for design, prepare to see more applications directly incorporate sustainability data within their interfaces.

Free Google Earth mapping and Sketchup modeling software, which are easier for consumers to toy with, added tools in April for designing green buildings. Users can upload to and find each others' models on the 3D Warehouse site.