Wind Turbine Maker Northern Power picks up $37M
From: Earth2Tech.com
by Craig Rubens
As wind farm developments have soared in the U.S., turbine makers are finding they can barely keep up. Northern Power Systems said its parent company, Wind Power Holdings, has completed a $37 million round of financing to boost its turbine manufacturing business, led by RockPort Capital Partners and Allen & Company.
Barre, Vt.-based Northern Power says it plans to use the funding to not only scale up manufacturing of its small-scale 100 kilowatt Northwind 100 turbines but also accelerate development of a much larger 2.2 megawatt turbine which it plans to sell to industrial wind farm developers.
It’s this large-scale turbine shortage that Northern Power hopes to tap into with its 2.2 MW permanent magnet direct drive wind turbine. The permanent magnet direct drive system is where much of the company’s IP lies. Instead of employing a complicated, heavy and expensive gearbox, Northern Power’s proprietary permanent magnet generator reduces the number of moving parts. The result, the company claims, is a generator that is lighter, more efficient and requires less assembly labor and less maintenance.
Not green!!!