Advanced and Alternative Energy : Innovation + Job News

Avtron Industrial Automation, with roots in aerospace testing equipment, is flying a little closer to the ground these days. With some help from Ohio's Third Frontier, the company is developing encoders for use in wind turbines. The encoders sense position within 360 degrees.

Worldwide, Avtron has about 400 employees, 350 of which are in Cleveland. The remaining employees work in New Hampshire and Beijing. Spurred by the $1-million Third Frontier award, Kosnik says the company plans to add another 30 jobs by 2014.

The company makes drive systems, load banks, aerospace test equipment and incremental encoders for measuring speed and position in industrial control systems. Users of the encoders include heavy industry, the wind turbine industry, and offshore oil platforms. Overall, company sales have been strong, says Don Kosnik; Director R&D (Engineering), about doubling over the last three to five years.

Over one third of Avtron's staff are technical personnel with four-year degrees or higher. Most have backgrounds in electrical and mechanical engineering, electronics or computers. Many of its product design engineers come from Avtron's Field Engineering Department.

Avtron Aerospace, Inc., Avtron Loadbank, Inc., and Avtron Industrial Automation, Inc. are part of Avtron Holdings, LLC. Their customers include 95 percent of the Fortune 500 and nearly every major airline in the world. The company has been in business since 1953. In 2007, Avtron was acquired by Morgenthaler Partners, LLC, a private equity company with assets under management of approximately $3 billion.

Source: Don Kosnik; Director R&D, Engineering
Writer: Patrick G. Mahoney

ButylFuel believes bio-butanol may be the best green replacement for gasoline or diesel -- but first, it has to bring the price down.

The Columbus company is using a new strain of bacterium developed by Shang-Tian Yang, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Ohio State University, to turn feedstock into butanol, bypassing the petroleum refining process through which the product is now made.

ButylFuel is currently running a pilot plant in nearby Gahanna to prove its technology and find new ways to make the fuel commercially viable, says Tom Grote, ButylFuel's chief financial officer. Grote, whose family owns Donatos pizza and Grote Company, says his family bought ButylFuel because "we're very interested in green initiatives."

Founded by Dave Ramey as Environmental Energy in the early 1990s, the company says butanol has big advantages over ethanol. Ethanol is corrosive and can't be shipped through a pipeline. It must be mixed with gasoline to be used in current engines, while butanol can be used in a blend or by itself. And butanol has about the same energy content as gasoline, while ethanol has only about a third.

But commercially produced butanol, used primarily as an industrial solvent, costs between $3.50 and $7 a gallon using today's production methods. Grote says the company is at least a year a way from building a demonstration plant that would produce a commercial product using cleaner, cheaper processes.

Grote credits Ramey, now the company's chief technology officer, with helping to educate consumers (he showed butanol could be used as a drop-in substitute for gasoline by filling his '92 Buick with the fuel) and lawmakers, who wrote butanol into the 2007 federal energy bill as part of the nation's renewable fuels standards.

The company, in tandem with Yang, has benefited from Ohio Third Frontier funding, but "we're aggressively partnering with folks to try to accelerate development," Grote says. "We are definitely willing to take on a strategic partner who would be willing to invest as we grow this."

ButylFuel currently employs six.

Source: Tom Grote, ButylFuel
Writer: Gene Monteith

A new state program launched last week combines $40 million in state and federal funds with $40 million in private investment to generate new jobs in advanced and alternative energy.

The Ohio Energy Gateway Fund will invest $30 million in federal stimulus money and $10 million from the Ohio Advanced Energy Stimulus Fund along with matching equity investments from two firms selected to manage the program, says Mark Barbash, assistant director of  the Ohio Department of Development.

EnerTech Capital and Arsenal Venture Partners, which will review applications and make decisions on program awards, will also invest at a dollar-for-dollar match against public funds, Barbash says. The funds will go even further if additional investors are attracted to specific projects, he says.

Columbus-based USA Energy Advisors will oversee the process.

Barbash says two kinds of projects are anticipated: projects such as new wind turbine or solar field installations -- and established companies that want to move into making components for advanced energy industries. All must be projects that take place in Ohio.

"We're looking for the broad breadth of advanced energy -- wind, solar, geothermal, propulsion -- but we're also going to be looking at projects that can happen quickly."

He says the Department of Development expects about a dozen projects to launch initially, noting that a number are already in the pipeline.

"The important distinction about this fund is this is not a venture capital fund," Barbash says. "There are other programs out there for startup companies, other programs out there for seed capital -- we're looking for mature companies and mature projects."

While the end goal is job creation, Barbash says it's too early to predict how many new jobs will result.

Source: Mark Barbash, Ohio Department of Development
Writer: Gene Monteith

Experts are studying Northeast Ohio's energy opportunities for development of a regional action plan. Long term goal: boost the area's advanced energy industry and create jobs.

Westlake-based Newry Corp., a management consulting firm, and NorTech Energy Enterprise, of Cleveland, want data on energy storage, transportation electrification, smart grid and biomass/waste-to-energy activities.

From this month to July, 2011 they will be collecting information from a wide range of sources using a variety of techniques. The process will help identify the unique strengths of the region in the specific sectors; characterize the global market drivers and opportunities; assess the competitive landscape; and outline regional opportunities for growth, according to NorTech Energy Enterprise.

Nortech engaged Newry after a national competitive search, citing the firm's experience with similar initiatives. Newry, which also has offices in Chicago and New York, was founded in 1987.

Newry's "depth and breadth of market experience and knowledge in advanced energy" qualified it to partner with NorTech for this, Rebecca O. Bagley, president and chief executive officer of NorTech, said in a news release.

NorTech Energy Enterprise is the year-old advanced energy initiative of NorTech, the nonprofit, technology-based economic development organization serving 21 counties.

Source: Kelly C. South, NorTech
Writer: Gabriella Jacobs

Putting a solar system on your house is expensive and you might not see the payback for 20 years. But if you're a school or a business, a Columbus start-up says it has a way to help you tap into solar power, benefit as a "green" operator and do it for no money down.

Thomas Van Cleef, principal of Shine On Solar, says he launched the company earlier this year because "there are ways that businesses looking at this correctly can make it pay."

His approach hinges on power purchase agreements. Shine On's plan is to enlist third parties to own and operate each solar energy system as a limited liability partnership, thus qualifying for federal and state energy tax credits. The building owners would then purchase the power at affordable rates -- and the system owners could realize additional revenue from the sale of renewable energy credits to utilities.

"I'm going to put together an LLC for that particular power plant," Van Cleef explains. "And I'll bring investors to it and in some cases it could be wholly owned by the company that owns the roof. But it could also be you, me and our neighbors wanting to put solar on the school down the way."

Van Cleef, who helped found Solar Vision -- a similar company operating in central Ohio -- says he's working on four such projects currently and preparing to hire four employees in the next 60 to 90 days.

In the meantime, "what's really taking off for me right now are people saying what can be done?" to take advantage of advanced and alternative energy." He says the consulting side of the business is focused not just on solar, but on any energy source that makes sense for the customer.

Source: Thomas Van Cleef, Shine On Solar
Writer: Gene Monteith

Green Energy Initiatives wants to become a successful environmental company. But its mission is to help bring jobs to Mingo Junction and other parts of Ohio's former steelmaking region.

Jim Lewis, the company's chief operating officer, says he and partner Dave Waller � two former Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corp. managers � formed the company in the aftermath of the Mingo Junction plant's shutdown in 2009.

Lewis says a group of local business, religious and government leaders began discussing the fate of the region. But when no clear plan emerged, Lewis and Waller decided to to form Green Energy Initiatives, hoping that the success of the company will lead to green, spinoff jobs.

GEI has delved into a number of green areas, including solar lighting for portable toilets. A couple of big orders "kind of got the revenue going for the company," Lewis says.

Another business segment is in bioremediation. GEI distributes a beeswax-based material used to clean oil spills, and also helps companies develop spill prevention control and countermeasure plans. Additionally, the company provides environmental water sampling services.
 
While Lewis says other opportunities abound -- including supplying water used to force natural gas out of shale and then cleaning pollutants from the water afterward -- he believes one of the biggest is in liquid natural gas. When the steel mills shut down, numerous gas wells drilled to support the industry were capped, he says, stranding them before pipelines were built. GEI eventually hopes to build gas liquefaction plants at those well heads, using the natural gas to run the plants and then transporting the LNG to customers.

With eight employees and just under $1 million in purchase orders so far, the company hopes the ripple effect of its success will translate into hundreds of jobs within the community.

"I have a personal goal, and that is that in the next four to five years to have 400 to 500 people hired in businesses that are green in this part of Ohio."

Source: Jim Lewis, Green Energy Initiatives
Writer: Gene Monteith

For the last 10 years, Green Energy Ohio has been promoting environmentally and economically sustainable energy policies in Ohio.

One of its hallmark programs � the annual Ohio Solar Tour � was held Oct. 2-3, with 242 green homes and businesses opening their doors to the public.

"The tour that we just completed was the eighth year that we participated," says Jack Clock, the non-profit's southwest Ohio coordinator. The national event, sponsored by GEO's parent organization, the American Solar Energy Society, gives the public an opportunity to see how others are making use of renewable and sustainable energy practices � not just solar, Clock says.

"I think we had more sites this year than any state in the country," Clock says. "It was all done in Google Maps, so you could go in, put in your address, the technologies you wanted to see and how far you were willing to travel, and it would spit out everything within that mile radius."

The organization is divided into five regions and is run by Executive Director Bill Spratley, Ohio's first Consumers Counsel. GEO's main offices are located in Columbus. The organization not only advances the use of advanced and alternative energy, but provides education and assistance to homeowners and businesses interested in clean energy. GEO also encourages volunteer clean energy projects and has helped train solar system installers.

GEO will have a hand in the Society of Manufacturing Engineers' "Lean to Green" conference scheduled Oct. 26th-29th in Columbus. As part of that conference, GEO will hold its own business-to-business workshop Oct. 26th to showcase Ohio companies using clean energy systems.

Source: Jack Clock, Green Energy Ohio
Writer: Gene Monteith

Founded in 1995, Dovetail Solar and Wind began modestly, installing solar systems for rural-Ohio residents seeking to go off-the-grid. Solar panels were incredibly expensive � but still a substantial savings for many who could not afford to have a utility company run power to their homes.

A little federal and state legislation changed everything. For the better.

"Prior to 2006, it was almost all residential," says Dovetail vice president Alan Frasz. "The (Energy Policy Act of 2005) offered a 30 percent tax credit. Businesses took notice."

Then, a second tremendous boost for the company, Frasz says, came from the renewable portfolio standard bill that Ohio approved in 2008, requiring 25 percent of the state's energy to be generated from alternative and renewable sources.

"We doubled our business," he adds. "We've been growing quite a bit in the last in few years."

A member of the University of Toledo Clean and Alternative Energy Incubator, Dovetail now provides energy systems for solar electric, solar thermal and wind � and has installed 175 systems such across Ohio and its neighboring states.

"We expect to finish the year between six and seven millions dollars in sales," Frasz says. "In a worldwide economy, the beauty of renewable energy is that the wind and sun are free. They don't put out any pollution � and renewable energy creates clean, green jobs in Ohio, as opposed to other places."

There are now offices in all corners of Ohio: Athens, Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati. In 2006, there were just a handful of people employed with the company. There are now 32 full time employees, but Frasz says that number could hit 50 by the end of 2011.

"Rather than having this money going out of the state and burning in a smoke-stack, let's take some of that and put it into renewable energy," Frasz says.

Source: Alan Frasz, Dovetail Solar
Writer: Colin McEwen

The Dayton region may be known as Ohio's sensors corridor, but northeast Ohio's capabilities in sensor technology just got a boost -- and a big one at that.

Last week the Wright Center for Sensor Systems Engineering at Cleveland State University, allocating funds from the Ohio Third Frontier initiative, awarded six grants totaling more than $17 million to universities and other organizations for development and commercialization of sensors and sensor technologies.

The largest of the six grants -- 25 percent of which will be matched by recipients -- went to Lorain County Community College, which will receive $5.5 million to work with R.W. Beckett Corp., Acence and Greenfield Solar Corp., to create a center for sensor commercialization.

The Cleveland Clinic Foundation's Learner Research Institute will receive $2.67 million to lead establishment a new center for sensor and microdevices for biomedical applications, and the Austen BioInnovation Institute is getting $2.6 million to lead development of an advanced instrumentation platform for product development in biomedical areas.

Meanwhile, the Ohio State University is slated to receive $3 million to lead commercialization of terahertz sensors for applications such as medical imaging and homeland security, and the University of Akron will receive $1.66 million to lead commercialization of sensor technologies for clean energy products.

Youngstown State University will also receive $1.66 million, for a collaboration with the Youngstown Business Incubator and M-7 Technologies to create systems for next generation manufacturing and inspection systems.

Some recipients are already predicting new jobs due to the awards.

"Our principal commercial partner, M-7 technologies, is looking to hire an additional 70 employees over five years," says Julie Michael Smith, the Youngstown incubator's chief development officer. "That is the direct employment, and then of course there will hopefully be downstream employment by companies employing this technologies."

She says the grants are good for northeast Ohio and for the Youngstown area, where old-line industries like steel have been battered in recent years.

Sources: The Wright Center for Sensor Systems Engineering and Julie Michael Smith, Youngstown Business Incubator
Writer: Gene Monteith

While deep thinkers continue to debate whether the chicken or the egg came first, one thing's for sure. In the biomass research business, AdvanceBio Systems of Milford is a leader. Two big deals this summer are proof.

On Aug. 2 the company announced the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., is acquiring a Biomass Pretreatment Reactor System. Experts at the 27,000-square-foot Integrated Biorefinery Research Facility there will use the AdvanceBio system for projects to make fuel ethanol from cellulosic biomass cost-competitive.

And on July 19 Penn State University awarded AdvanceBio a contract to supply a Bench Scale Hydrolyzer System for its Shared Fermentation Facility in University Park, Penn. The equipment will be used for research, development and demonstration of technology related to production of biomass-based fuels and chemicals from feedstocks. The company and school intended to collaborate on related research and development projects.

Earlier this year the company released The Bench Scale System, designed for university and corporate R&D personnel working on pre-treatment of biomass for next-generation fuels. AdvanceBio's other products are the lab, pilot and commercial scale systems � each escalating in the volume of material to be studied. All can be used on things such as sugar cane, corn cobs, corn stalks, switchgrass and wood chips, says Richard C. Agar, P.E., a senior associate at the company.

AdvanceBio's fuel and chemical consulting business began in 2007; the systems business began in '09, Agar says.

Source: Richard C. Agar, P.E., AdvanceBio Systems
Writer: Gabriella Jacobs

A solar array gathers sunlight for electricity. But something has to convert that energy from direct current to alternating current before it can be fed into an electric power grid. Toledo-based Nextronex Power Systems says it has come up with a simpler and more efficient way of doing that..

Nextronex's target customers are utility-size solar installations. While competition is stiff, Peter Gerhardinger, the company's chief technology officer, says Nextronex has an advantage over suppliers that provide only inverters -- the box that converts DC to AC.
 
"They rely on the integrator to determine how he's going to wire it, how he's going to lay it out. And so there's spawned a whole lot of intermediate type products," he says. "We took a fresh approach and, based on customer feedback, decided there's a need for a wiring kit that is not only the inverter, but that combines all the switch gear, all the fusing, all the monitoring into an easy-to-assemble system."

The resulting cabinet is smaller than most in the industry, he says, and can be easily installed. Not just that, but rather than relying on only one big inverter, the Nextronex system uses multiple inverters that switch on and off as energy from the sun ebbs and flows during the day, resulting in less loss of power than typical one-box systems.

Nextronex's system is in use currently at the 180th Air National Guard base in Toledo and at a site in Roswell New Mexico, with another three projects nearing implementation. The company has received $1.4 million local investments, including those from the Science, Technology and Innovation Enterprises and Rocket Ventures, the venture capital arm of the Regional Growth Partnership.

The company was formed in 2008 and currently employs 10, says company founder James Olzak. But Olczak says Netronex expects to have "greater than several dozen people next year at this time."

Sources: James Olzak, Peter Gerhardinger and Scott Thompson, Nextronex
Writer: Gene Monteith

The earth pulls in more energy from the sun in one hour than is consumed in one year. That's an estimated 970 trillion kilowatt hours of energy every day. But solar power contributes less than one-half of 1 percent of the world's daily power generation.

Solargystics, a Sylvania-based startup solar company with lofty goals, would like to change that by making solar energy more affordable for everyone.

Solargystics has developed patent-pending technology aimed at lowering the cost of thin film photovoltaic production. The company would like to see nothing more than people ditching the shingles on top of their homes in favor of cost-efficient solar panels.

The idea � while not yet on the market � certainly has generated some interest. The company is working on its process with the Wright Center for Photovoltaic Innovation and Commercialization at the University of Toledo � where the company has access to testing equipment it couldn't obtain on its own. The researchers, originally from Michigan, moved the company to Ohio in 2007, hoping to obtain funding from the state's Third Frontier program.

Even though that grant proposal was denied, David Hiatt, the company's chief financial officer, says Solargystics is still seeking funding. And company officials are still optimistic.

"We're like everybody else," he says. "It's tough to be a startup with limited funding."

The company currently employs four people, but contracts a number of people in the Toledo area, Hiatt says, adding that more employees will be added when the product reaches commercialization.

"It's coming along � just slowly," he adds.

Source: David Hiatt, Solargystics
Writer: Colin McEwen

You don't have to be a meteorologist to know which way the wind turbine business is blowing.  You just have to know that better models are on the way, thanks to companies like ADI Wind in Sheffield Village.

Basically, the parts of a wind turbine gearbox have to be lightweight and long-lasting. About two years ago, while developing automation equipment for a major wind turbine manufacturer, leaders of Advanced Design Industries Inc. realized they had a way to overcome some problems known in the industry.

Support from a Lorain County Community College Innovation Grant and the Defense Metals Technology Center helped the company design and build a 125 kW prototype gearbox as well as a test bed. ADI Wind now is an offshoot of Advanced Design specializing in the new unit.

"Many gearless wind turbines weigh even more than their geared counterpart. Our gearbox is six times or more lighter than conventional units. This is accomplished by the unique gearing and reaction configuration which allows us to reach high gear ratios with significantly fewer parts and a much smaller size. With room to spare on the weight side, we can 'beef-up' our components and increase the safety factor," according to Kurt Lauer, ADI vice president.

ADI Wind is also developing an integrated generator, which will be placed directly with the same gearbox housing. The company foresees a mobile wind turbine � one that can be transported by semi or helicopter anywhere in the world, erected and producing 100 kW in hours.

"�We see these mobile units going up at schools, shopping malls, county fairs, on farms and everywhere that people want to make electricity," Lauer says.

ADI Wind is finalizing designs and working on a demonstration model to show potential investors.

Source: Kurt Lauer, ADI Wind
Writer: Gabriella Jacobs

A nonprofit corporation leading efforts to establish a 20-MW offshore wind project in Lake Erie says the new wind farm could result in 600 new jobs by 2012.

But that's just a short-term scenario. Expanding the wind farm to 1,500 MW of wind energy would create or maintain 3,000 jobs in Ohio -- and increasing it to 5,000 MW would generate as many as 8,000 new jobs.

The Lake Erie Energy Development Corporation (LEEDCo) released the numbers Aug. 5 as part of an economic impact study commissioned by NorTech, a nonprofit technology-based economic development organization.

The study examined the economic effects of two scenarios for deploying wind turbines in Lake Erie. Both scenarios assume an initial offshore installation of 20 MW by 2012 and are based on the estimated costs for installation, operations and maintenance of hypothetical 5-MW turbines as well as estimated costs of specialized vessels necessary to install them.

Besides the creation of jobs, the study projected that:

-- Expenditures through 2014 for deployment and operation of the 20-MW project would total $63.4 million. Sales are estimated at $81.6 million, with $34.2 million in wages and $47.7 million in public revenues.

-- Installing 5,000 MW of offshore wind energy would generate $7.8 billion in wages and salaries, $22.6 billion in sales, and $586.5 million in public revenues by 2030.

-- Deploying 1,500 MW of wind energy would generate $2.2 billion in wages, $6.5 billion in sales, and $171.5 million in public revenue (state and local) by 2030.

LEEDCO is part of a four-year effort to explore the potential for offshore wind energy on Lake Erie. NorTech created LEEDCo late last year in partnership with the Great Lakes Energy Task Force and the Cleveland Foundation.

Source: LEEDCo.
Writer: Gene Monteith

One of alternative energy's best hopes is the solid oxide fuel cell, a century-old invention that produces electricity directly from oxidizing fuel within a closed environment. Long used as power source in practically every NASA mission since the 1960's, the technology has never been widely used because the inherent high costs.

That is, until now.

Refractory Specialties Inc., a Sebring-based company that has a 40-year history of supplying insulation and other products for high-temperature manufacturing processes, has emerged as a solution to lowering the cost of making the cells, while increasing their quality. RSI has developed kiln products from an existing company line and a new coating that ensure very exact production of ceramic parts used in SOFCs, which in turn, should boost production of the high-efficiency energy source.

The company developed this new product line, Sinterlyte, with the help of a $400,000 grant from the Ohio Third Frontier initiative.

"To make the ceramic parts, you have to fire them at a very high temperatures � we're talking in excess of 1,300 degrees Celsius, and as high as 1,400 degrees," explains Suhas Patil, RSI's head of engineering. "We were able to take our T-Cast material that we already had and put a coating on it, which allows you to deal with these very high temperatures without contaminating the ceramic piece you're making. I tell people it's like baking cookies. We make the cookie tray. You don't want anything from the tray to ruin the cookie."

Sinteryte also allows for precise molding of the ceramic pieces, which is also important to the long-term dependability of SOFCs that normally operate at high temperatures while in use. RSI's advance means the fuel cells can finally be a financially viable alternative to fossil fuels.

The company had been working on Sinteryte prior to getting the Third Frontier grant in 2008, and brought it to market this year. Revenue projections for the line are expected to surpass $25 million within four years. That means expected growth for RSI as well, which currently has more than 100 employees at two sites, and services over 30 major and hundreds of smaller clients. SinterLyte's success could earn RSI a large share of the global market, including overseas clients like Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited in Australia to Wartsilla in Finland among others.

Source: Suhas Patil, Refractory Specialties Inc.
Writer: Dave Malaska