Lessons learned… Machiavelli and the electric utility industry

The Wind Turbine Company was founded in 1990 to build wind turbines capable of generating competitively priced electricity – no subsidies needed – thank you!  Administrations and legislators come and go.  And so can subsidies.  If a product or service cannot compete without a subsidy it skates on thin ice. 

WTC wanted the staying power that comes with being the low cost producer.  Unfortunately, this is not the mantra of electric utilities.  They simply want to recover their costs no matter how high they are.  As a result, utility companies have shown little interest in the development of lower cost wind technology   

WTC’s founders, who previously worked together for wind industry pioneer FloWind, believed the future for competitively priced wind energy was very bright.  We recognized this required low cost wind technology and set out to create it.  What we didn’t anticipate, as Machiavelli so eloquently put it is “there is nothing more difficult to carry out … than to initiate a new order of things.” 

In 1995 we were selected by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to participate in the “Next Generation Turbine Development Project.”   This provided $15 million in funding to develop the WTC prototypes pictured herein.  We were also fortunate that the California Energy Commission’s (CEC) Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) Program selected us for $2.3 million in funding.  

The goal of the DOE, the CEC, and WTC was a significant reduction in the cost of producing wind energy, by an amount roughly equal to the value of the Federal Production Tax Credit, which has existed almost continuously since 1992.

The two prototypes we produced demonstrated the technical viability of our turbine concept, and provided evidence that we could achieve our manufacturing cost goals.

We are in discussions with several customers for our first commercial turbines.  If you are a prospective customer and believe our turbines might be suited for your application, we would like to hear from you

We are raising funding to begin commercial production.  If you are a qualified investor and interested in learning more we would be pleased to provide you with additional information

 Wind energy is not mature – the existing turbine technology is.  If the wind industry is to survive and grow, lower cost technology is imperative.  We have it!