N.C. startup hopes to harness success with small wind turbine

A 22-year-old French entrepreneur and a 53-year-old shade tree mechanic from Whiteville have formed an unlikely alliance in an even unlikelier effort to harness wind energy in North Carolina.

GreenSky Wind Systems, their startup, is jumping into the one area of wind energy that has had some success in this state: small wind turbines. It's an increasingly crowded field that already has seen one turbine maker with operations here declare bankruptcy.

Despite the odds, Quentin Ankri, the Frenchman, and Greg Farley, the American mechanic, are forging ahead.

"The market for these wind turbines is an international market," Ankri said. "The deal for us is to get to mass manufacturing."

Ankri has an undergraduate business degree from UNC Wilmington and a marketing degree from France. Farley is a former pipefitter and onetime hydroponic tomato grower.

Ankri formed GreenSky in October 2010 with his roommate, William Hyerle, 23, a fellow UNCW grad. They had big aspirations and drew up a business plan for wind power, but what they lacked was a product. Ankri's research led to an online introduction to Farley, a North Carolina native who designed and built a miniturbine.

Numbering five employees, GreenSky is the only designer and manufacturer of small wind turbines based in the state. It is testing homegrown technology designed to deliver compact wind power machines, called J-Sails, some measuring just 4½ feet tall.

GreenSky has installed two test models, one in Wilmington and one in Illinois, and Farley is hand-building GreenSky's fourth turbine in his workshop in Whiteville, about 120 miles south of Raleigh.

These small turbines are designed for businesses, farms and homes, not as a long-term, multimillion-dollar investment to be financed by Wall Street. GreenSky's technology has not been independently verified, but Farley and Ankri say their J-Sails will be more efficient than competing models because they will generate electricity at lower wind speeds.

"That's our whole key," Farley said. "We've got all the pieces put together."

Certification

North Carolina, a state with some of the richest wind resources on the East Coast, has been a difficult market for those trying to develop wind energy farms. The state's wind-rich areas generally shun industrial development because they depend on tourism, and some have sensitive ecosystems.

But a half-dozen makers of smaller wind turbines have been able to make inroads with turbines that take up little space and don't depend on Wall Street financing or long-term contracts with utilities. It's estimated that as many as 50 of their devices, some no higher than a flagpole or streetlight, are generating electricity in North Carolina.

Unlike the industrial wind machinery made and operated by General Electric, Iberdrola or other global corporations, small turbine makers form a freewheeling industry that only recently began regulating itself to establish standards and gain credibility.

To clamp down on the exaggerated and false performance claims, the Small Wind Certification Council of Clifton Park, N.Y., has devised industry standards for testing small turbines. The group requires that small turbines operate for six months without major malfunctions as a condition of certification.

"Before certification, the manufacturers were using whatever they wanted to use in terms of their power capacity," SWCC Executive Director Larry Sherwood said. "They were typically pretty inflated numbers."

The SWCC has certified two models with more than two dozen applications pending. GreenSky plans to apply this summer for evaluation, Ankri said.

Current models

In North Carolina, most of the small turbines have been put in the windiest zones — the mountains and the coast. However, several small turbine models are on display in Raleigh at N.C. State University's Solar House, and at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences' Prairie Ridge Ecostation on Reedy Creek Road.

Some of these miniatures put out just several kilowatts of power — one one-thousandth of the electricity produced by a single commercial-scale turbine. That's barely enough electrons to keep the lights on and appliances running, let alone power an entire home. Small turbines often are installed solo, rather than grouped in wind farms with several dozen other turbines, limiting their visual impact as well as their power.

Their high cost, relative to their irregular power output, has consigned these private backyard generators to a niche product for hobbyists.

But Ankri says that's about to change. He expects the production price of their turbines to come down as electricity prices rise in the coming years, making wind power more economical and more palatable to the public.

Ankri and Farley have previous exposure to wind power. Ankri's uncle works in the wind industry in Australia and opened his eyes to the energy potential of breezes, he said. Farley was involved in a wind power venture in North Carolina that flopped. "It ended up being a scam," he said, but he got hooked and became determined to design a better turbine.

Ankri's business plan and Farley's technical know-how have received some positive reviews: GreenSky was accepted into the most recent Startup Stampede, a competitive 60-day incubator program in Durham that provides resources and guidance to promising companies.

Affordability, longevity

GreenSky expects to sell its products in this state in the mountains and along the coast, where sufficient wind speeds will allow customers to recover their costs within eight years, Ankri said. Much of the state's midsection, the Triangle included, doesn't produce sufficient wind speeds to justify the cost of the machines, which are expected to range in price from $8,000 for a 1-kilowatt model to $75,000 for a 15-kilowatt model, he said.

Nearly two-thirds of that cost would be covered by state and federal tax credits, without which wind turbines would be unaffordable. The rationale for the incentives is that they promote a nonpolluting source of electricity that uses an endless energy resource rather than burning fossil fuels.

In addition to making the turbines more affordable, GreenSky and its competitors will need to convince consumers that they'll be there for the long haul. The turbines are supposed to last several decades but will need maintenance and replacement parts. GreenSky's components, including the generator, are custom-designed and can't be mail-ordered from a generic vendor.

The issue of longevity is not a theoretical concern. Nevada-based Windspire has installed nearly two dozen small turbines in North Carolina, but the company filed for bankruptcy protection Jan. 6.

Windspire's experience

Windspire, which hopes to reorganize and remain in business, has $5.9 million in debt and a little less than $219,000 in assets, the bankruptcy filing shows. The company was stymied by local resistance to wind power, and then done in by the recession. Windspire has applied for certification with SWCC, and its turbine is still undergoing review.

A 1.2-kilowatt Windspire turbine costs $16,000 to $18,000 installed, before tax credits cut the cost by nearly two-thirds. The company has installed more than 1,000 turbines nationwide, said Addie Randall of Blue Sun Renew, Windspire's Washington, N.C.-based distributor for the mid-Atlantic region.

But that wasn't enough to keep the company going. "For homeowners, wind turbines are still a luxury item," Randall said.

Another common small turbine in this state is the 2.4-kilowatt Skystream model made by Southwest Windpower in Flagstaff, Ariz. The Skystream turbine is one of two models certified by the SWCC.

It's sold by Raleigh installer Baker Renewable Energy and costs $18,000 to $22,000, which on average ends up costing customers about $7,000 after the state and federal incentives.

Baker Renewable has installed 20 turbines in four states, about half in North Carolina, for homes and businesses, as well as demonstration projects for schools.

Baker Renewable Vice President Jason Epstein said he has talked 40 to 50 customers out of buying small turbines in recent years because they live in areas with poor wind resources. He worries that wind power projects that fail to deliver on their promise undermine the industry. "The industry needs to get past showy projects that are really not cost-effective," Epstein said. "That's not green; that's showing off."

GreenSky plans to address that issue by offering options: small turbines in four sizes, suitable for small tasks like recharging electric motors as well as heavier duties such as powering homes and business.

GreenSky's next step is to secure financing to begin manufacturing. Plans are for the J-Sails, constructed from fiberglass and composites, to be built in North Carolina and then shipped around the world for on-site assembly.

Ankri said the company's plan calls for building and shipping 30 turbines this year.