The Ultimate Recycling Project

Published on Tuesday, May 27, 2008

If recycling is a good and ‘green’, and wind turbines are good and ‘green’, then how good and green is a plan to recycle the wind turbines themselves?

How about calling it ‘the Ultimate Recycling Project’? That’s what one Massachusetts-based company is hoping to achieve, by refurbishing and finding new homes for hundreds of wind turbines that are being retired from the large wind farms of California.

Aeronautica Windpower (AeronauticaWind.com), which is located in ‘America’s Hometown’ of Plymouth, Massachusetts, is betting that a large variety of new locations can be found for these recycled, green power generators across the rest of the country.

According to industry research, over 10,000 machines that were installed during the mid ‘80s and ‘90s may soon be replaced by larger, more modern turbines. That’s a lot of generation capacity that would otherwise be scrapped – about the equivalent of a couple of nuclear power plants.

“While big machines make sense on a wind farm, these ‘mid-scale’ machines are perfect for agriculture, schools, villages and other commercial and industrial applications.” says Brian Kuhn, VP of Marketing for Aeronautica Windpower.

“Not all machines can be recycled,” Kuhn goes on to explain, “since many of the older models were quite troublesome. In many ways the California wind fields were the proving grounds for modern wind turbine designs from around the world.” he adds.

By carefully researching the manufacturers and handpicking the units for recycling, Aeronautica Windpower hopes to give the best machines a second life at harvesting renewable energy for America.

“Some of these machines were built like battle tanks,” explains Aeronautica’s VP of Manufacturing, David Wright. “and like many aircraft and other pieces of equipment, they can be stripped down to the frame and rebuilt, using many newer technologies that were not even available when they were first made” he adds. For instance, Aeronautica plans to install electronics on each machine that will allow them to tie into the Internet in order to report their own service issues and operating statistics.

The company, which also has plans to introduce its own line of new wind turbines and fiberglass blades, recognizes that recycled machines are only one niche in the burgeoning wind energy industry, which is growing at over 20% per year.

“But there’s still a lot of life left in these machines,” Kuhn says, “and it would be a shame to waste them. In fact, our prices for recycled machines create some of the best economics in the wind business. In many cases the investment in equipment can be recovered in as little as 4 years, with free electricity thereafter.”

Aeronautica Windpower is one of the growing number of firms entering the US wind industry, which is growing at over 20% per year. Last year, wind power accounted for over 30% of the world’s new electrical generation capacity.

“We’re proud to be providing this valuable service”, Kuhn says, “and we expect to be quite busy recycling these ‘green machines’ for several years to come.”

For Immediate Release Contact: Brian D. Kuhn
May 26, 2008 VP Marketing
Aeronautica Windpower, Inc.
800-360-0132
www.AeronauticaWind.com