About a year ago we wrote about Mariah Power’s Windspire vertical axis turbine intended to be packaged as an appliance. An update is in order now that the Reno, Nevada company has secured $1.25M in funding and is scheduled to produce and ship their first 50 turbines this month.

The distinguishing characteristics about this approach is that the turbine is packaged as an appliance for consumer use and has a relatively low price point, $5,000 installed. The other compelling design feature is that the turbine is vertically oriented reducing noise, vibration, and avian complications. The device is expected to produce around 1,800 kwh per year and cuts in at 11 mph wind speed.

Mariah is seeking expansion capital of more than $5M to grow their business starting with fulfilling their 1,200 customer orders for the Windspire turbine.

HT: Pete Palmer

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One of the more frustrating aspects of attempting to enter the geothermal industry is that it is small, fragmented, and insular. Most of the players have been in the business for more than 30 years, have seen the boom/bust cycle, and consequently are wary of newcomers during a boom cycle. The people who make up the core of the industry are the survivors from prior cycles and they can be difficult to reach.

Instead of focusing on the people, which would be counter-productive, a tour of the companies and organizations working in and around the geothermal industry might be useful for our readers. Roughly speaking, there are developers, operators, industry groups, and service providers. We’ll focus more on the developers and operators in this entry, but will list a few industry groups and service providers. This entry is North America focused, there are clearly well developed resources in Iceland, Italy, New Zealand, the Philippines, Mexico, and Indonesia. There are emerging projects in Africa, Asia Minor, and South America. This entry will not cover those areas explicitly.

Developers are the folks out there trying to create new projects from untapped and/or underutilized resources. Often times, developers are also operators, it’s just a function of where the team happens to be in the development cycle. There are private and public companies engaged, for the most part, it’s the public companies who are visible.

Developers

• Vulcan Power Company – Proponents of the “green gigawatt plan” with 7 properties in various stages of development.
• Nevada Geothermal – Developing four projects in Nevada and Oregon including the Blue Mountain project.
• Sierra Geothermal – Has a portfolio of 17 projects including the Reese River project in Nevada.
• Raser Technologies – Recent entry into the developer category with 12,000 acres and multiple projects in-flight.
• Western GeoPower – Longtime developer with two projects in-flight, a 35MW project at The Geysers and another in Canada.
• Many, many more small, under the radar shops (including MeV, publisher of this site.)

Operators

• Chevron – The world’s largest producer of geothermal power with 1,273MW in Indonesia and the Philippines.
• Calpine – The leading US geothermal producer with 750MW in 19 plants at The Geysers.
• Ormat – The largest “pure play” geothermal company. Ormat designs and develops geothermal harvest technology and operates nearly 400MW of power plants.
• Constellation – Operates the Mammoth and Soda Lake geothermal plants in California and Nevada.
• Cal Energy – Operates the Imperial Valley plants in California.
• Caithness/ArcLight – Operates 347MW across 5 plants in California and Nevada.
• US Geothermal – Operates the Raft River project in Idaho.
• Polaris Geothermal – Operates the San Jacinto Tizate plant in Nicaragua.
• US Navy – The Geothermal Program Office works in conjunction with Caithness in the operation of the Coso plants in California and may develop other resources on military lands in the Western US.

Industry Groups

• Geothermal Resources Council – The group focused on the geotechnical aspects of geothermal harvest and development.
• Geothermal Energy Association – The group focused on the political and financial aspects of geothermal harvest and development.

This service provider list is suggestive of the kinds of providers out there and some of the leaders, it is by no means complete. There are many, many service providers available to this nascent industry.

Service Providers

• Geothermex – A full-service geotechnical service provider well known for characterizing resources in advance of project financing.
• ThermaSource – An engineering company known for its drilling capabilities and execution at The Geysers.
• UTC Power – Subsidiary of United Technologies, producer of the first standard, modular, and scalable geothermal harvest systems.
• Stoel Rives – Law firm specializing in renewable energy deals, with specific expertise in geothermal projects.
• Jacob & Company – Canadian firm specializing in using the public markets (Toronto Venture Exchange) for project financing.
• US Renewables – Renewable energy venture funding source with geothermal projects and expertise.
• US Government – Has many agencies available to provide help and guidance (and regulation.) The Bureau of Land Manaement (BLM,) Environmental Protection Agency (EPA,) Federal Electricity Regulatory Commission (FERC,) Department of Forrestry (DoF,) and Department of Energy (DoE.)

We hope this has been an educational entry, we may do a deep dive on each company listed above over time. We certainly do comment periodically on the progress of projects as the news becomes public. If we’ve missed any developer/operator in the US (and it’s very possible we have) leave a comment and we’ll evaluate inclusion going forward.

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Photo Credit: SmartUSA

While driving around the San Francisco Bay Area this week we’ve had our first sighting of the Smart Car, a small vehicle taking Europe by storm. This is a conventional gasoline powered vehicle in tiny size: 1 liter/70hp engine, 61″x106″, and maximum weight of 2,300lbs. The vehicle gets between 33-41 mpg (EPA 2008) and has a range of around 300 miles with a two people and a little luggage.

On the emissions front, Smart Car plays a few tricks like positioning the catalytic converter close to the engine and blowing fresh air into the exhaust system to fully oxidize carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons. It has qualified as an Ultra-Low Emissions Vehicle in California.

The Smart Car is available in 3 flavors and the MSRP ranges from $12,000-$17,000 depending upon the model and options selected. Can’t wait to get one? Reserve yours here.

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Bristol, UK firm Marine Current Turbines successfully installed a 1.2MW turbine in Northern Ireland in the fast moving Strangford Narrows. This is the largest tidal harvest turbine installed to date (not including the tidal barrage systems that have been in use for some time in France for instance.)

MCT has plans for a 10.5MW project in conjunction with EDF off the coast of Wales scheduled to come online in 2012.

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When we started looking at business opportunities in the clean tech space, one of our original concepts was that of the “smart plug.” Given the heavy tech background of the team, a tech device made a huge amount of sense. We obviously decided to go another way, however, we still believe the idea has merit. That’s where Green Plug comes in.

Image Credit: Green Plug
Green Plug has taken the approach of creating a small bit of silicon enabled by smart software to allow for the efficient charging of any DC device from their hub. When the device charge is complete, the power to that charging port is terminated. The net is, it delivers just the right amount of juice to the right device a the right time and not a watt more.

Ultimately, we didn’t choose to pursue a similar idea as we believed it would take substantial government regulation to force device manufacturers to include such silicon and software in their products. While we still hold this view, it’s great to see that Green Plug has provided a viable alternative and as the regulators step up to the challenge there won’t be technology lag. In the meantime, we do believe Green Plug will have an uphill climb, good luck!

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