In Business, Creating Sustainable Enterprises & Communities

TURNING WIND INTO ELECTRICITY AROUND THE WORLD

In Business, November-December, 2004, Vol. 26, No. 6, p. 10

Vermont company moves into a new 46,000 square foot manufacturing facility to advance its mission in renewable power.

FOR more than 20 years, NRG Systems, Inc. of Hinesburg, Vermont has made products that help its customers “find” the wind. Since its launch in 1982 in a spare bedroom by David and Jan Blittersdorf, the company has grown from a single employee to 43 this year. Its team of engineers, technicians and production employees make sensors, instruments, towers and software that help others measure and analyze wind speed, direction and other environmental data crucial to siting and operating wind energy systems. Company growth has averaged more than 30 percent each year and overseas exports have consistently accounted for more than half of its sales. Today, NRG Systems is the world leader in the design and manufacture of wind energy measurement systems.
Nearly all of NRG's customers are located outside of Vermont; almost two-thirds are located in other countries. NRG wind energy assessment systems can be found on every continent in 107 countries, serving electric utilities, wind farm developers, research institutes, government agencies, universities and homeowners.
Last month, NRG Systems celebrated the grand opening of its new 46,000 square foot manufacturing facility and office building. The $8 million building, located in Hinesburg, is powered primarily by renewable energy and features the latest in energy efficiency technology and green building design.
“We needed a new space to accommodate our company's growth,” said Jan Blittersdorf, president and CEO of NRG Systems, Inc. “We also wanted to create a workplace that was healthy, functional and beautiful for our employees, while supporting our company's mission of furthering the use of renewable energy.” Two-thirds of the building's electricity is supplied by a 67-kilowatt solar photovoltaic installation, which will avoid the emission of up to 105,000 pounds of carbon dioxide annually. The $450,000 solar installation is the largest of its kind in Vermont. The building will also use another renewable resource - wood pellets made from lumber milling waste - for its heating needs. Conventional buildings use more than three times the energy as this building uses. Water-saving devices, such as dual-flushing toilets and faucet aerators, will save more than 100,000 gallons of water per year.
“We spent more money to build our facility green, but we see it as a long-term investment that will more than pay for itself in terms of productivity gains and energy and operating cost savings,” said David Blittersdorf. “We have essentially prepaid our energy bill by relying on renewable energy and, as a result, we won't have to worry about rising energy costs in the future.”
According to NRG Systems, the extra cost of building to green standards was $13.81 per square foot or 8.21 percent more (total project cost was $168 per square foot). NRG expects these additional costs to be paid for in five years.
The building features dozens of skylights and operable windows designed to take advantage of natural light, allow for natural ventilation and provide employees with views of the outdoors. Laptop computers and Energy Star-rated office equipment were selected to reduce electricity usage and heat gain. Earth- and human-friendly materials were used throughout the building, including low- or no-VOC stains, paints and adhesives, stained concrete flooring, certified wood and recycled glass bathroom tiles. The building features a first floor commons area that includes a cafe, double kitchen and three-story stone fireplace; the third floor features an endless swimming pool and fitness area for employees.
In addition to the building's green features, the new facility includes more than four times the area of its former facility. NRG also plans to develop recreation paths around its facility and eventually throughout Hinesburg for community use. NRG's new facility is LEED-registered and is seeking gold level certification. LEED, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is the nationally accepted standard and rating system for high performance, sustainable (green) buildings developed by the U.S. Green Building Council. If successful, NRG's building would be the highest LEED-certified building in Vermont and one of only a handful of manufacturing facilities in North America to receive this designation.

GROWING UP WITH A WINDMILL OUT YOUR WINDOW
As reported four years years ago in In Business, David Blittersdorf had a great view of Grandpa's Knob - the site for the world's first large-scale windmill - from his childhood home in Pittsford, Massachusetts. Built at the beginning of World War II with a price tag of $1.25 million, the 1.25 mega-watt experimental wind energy system fed power directly into Central Vermont Public Service's electrical grid. He and his father often climbed to the top of the mountain where the windmill once stood - its foundation still visible. (The Grandpa's Knob windmill lost a blade in 1945 and was dismantled.)
In 1982, when he was in his mid-20s, Blittersdorf turned his interest in wind turbines and mechanical engineering education at the University of Vermont into launching the home-based business called NRG Systems, Inc.
Just before David was elected president of the American Wind Energy Association in 2000, The New York Times reported that “in a boom that seemed unimaginable a few years ago, wind has become the nation's fastest growing source of electricity, with capacity doubling in the next 13 months.”
Progress in Europe was even more dramatic. In Denmark, wind supplied 10 percent of electricity; in the state of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, wind supplied 14 percent.
More states in the U.S. mandated use of wind power, as wind farms developed in the Great Plains states, New York, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Colorado to name a few.
In 2002, NRG launched the industry's first internet-enabled data logger, and the next year was named Small Business Administration's Regional Exporter of the Year, shortly before introducing to the market its new heated sensors for extreme icing conditions. The number of employees has steadily grown, just about doubling from its 1995 figure of 23 to 43 in 2004 (“hired ten employees this year and growing”). The concluding paragraph of our previous In Business report on NRG Systems is just as applicable now: “Like other renewable energy sources, commercialization barriers are formidable since projects do not receive the same tax breaks as coal and oil. But many believe that a healthy market for green energy sources like the wind will open up. Certainly the Blittersdorfs and NRG Systems are doing everything they can to topple those barriers and maximize the potential for wind energy.”