Aaron Lemieux of Tremont Electric
Meet Aaron LeMieux, founder of Tremont Electric.
What is Tremont Electric?
Tremont Electric is a triple bottom line, green-plus certified, clean-energy startup. We put clean energy at the fingertips of consumers around the world, wherever and whenever they need it, off the grid, with our patented nPower kinetic energy harvesting technology.
nPower is scalable -- the bigger or smaller the device, the more or less electricity it will generate. Our first product, the nPower PEG, is the world's first passive kinetic energy charger for personal hand-held electronics. nPower can work in devices as small as biomedical generators implanted into a patient, or as big as commercial scale wave energy converters in open water. nPower is not just a device-making technology, it's an industry making technology that can help us all achieve a clean energy future.
How did you come to be an entrepreneur?
While hiking 1,500 miles on the Appalachian Trail in 1996, I wondered how to take the kinetic energy of my backpack and convert it into usable electricity. By 2007, I had founded Tremont Electric. By 2009, nPower technology was patented and the first nPower PEG was launched, the most acclaimed clean energy technology to emerge from the industrial rust belt city of Cleveland, or anywhere, in a generation.
From my and my wife Jill's basement, Tremont Electric moved a few blocks to a storefront on the main drag in Tremont on Professor Street, between an art gallery and a bar named after Thomas Edison. In 2011, we packed our bags for greener pastures -- two blocks down Professor. Today, Tremont Electric continues in our namesake neighborhood, working every day to bring clean energy jobs to our hometown.
Why did you start your business?
Whether or not you believe climate change is real, the jobs created by a global transition to the abundance in renewable clean energy technologies are reason enough to reject the old ways, and begin anew. Solar, wind, geothermal, waves, tidal -- the supply and variety of clean energy is limitless. All of these sources can work together to power our world.
Kinetic energy is part of the solution. It's all around us, untapped. Every time you walk, run, bike, or hike, energy is there to be harvested. Each of us can create clean electricity if we use our own kinetic energy to power our hand-held devices, rather than using a wall outlet, which delivers dirty electricity created from burning coal. Our technology's first step, the nPower PEG, can be your own first step toward a clean energy future.
At Tremont Electric, we are only just beginning. The sun, wind, even the rotation of the earth itself all combine to create limitless, inexhaustible kinetic energy in waves on open water, within easy reach of the world's largest population centers. nPower technology can harness the massive kinetic energy in those waves, creating clean electricity competitive with the price of coal.
What are some of the advantages to doing business in Cleveland?
Ninety percent of our parts are sourced locally in Northeast Ohio. By creating electricity from no fuel other than motion, generating no emissions, our goal is to bring clean energy jobs to Cleveland, where the energy industry was born. John D. Rockefeller began Standard Oil in Cleveland, building his first oil refinery at a bend in the Cuyahoga River. Ohio is the birthplace of Thomas Edison, America's most prolific inventor. Northeast Ohio today nurtures a thriving and innovative startup community, combining Cleveland's skilled workforce, an affordable standard of living, excellent universities, cutting edge art and cultural institutions, and world class health care. These factors all create urban renewal focused on sustainable economic development.
What companies or founders do you admire and why?
Thomas Edison.