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Keeping Current

As a longtime sailor, surfer, and engineer, Ned McMahon knows how to harness the wind.

Recognizing an opportunity to redesign the typical wind turbine, McMahon and co-founder Bill Fitzmaurice did just that at their wind energy startup Primo Wind Inc.

The company is about to launch three models of rooftop wind turbines, initially designed for commercial customers, which are meant to fill gaps left by traditional wind and solar energy providers.

McMahon, who had previously built a business out of shaping eco-friendly surfboards, was interested in renewable energy from an early age. In high school, he idealized the “off the grid” capabilities of clean energy (an attitude that irked McMahon’s father, who worked for Shell Oil).

The inspiration for working in clean energy was bolstered by a recent diving trip in the Florida Keys, McMahon said. He was returning to a memorable coral reef he visited in the 1980s, a place he remembered as vibrant, colorful, and loaded with fish. But the ocean has grown more acidic since then, and McMahon’s return trip was deeply disturbing. As coal, oil, and other fossil fuels burn, they release excess carbon dioxide. That carbonic acid is absorbed by the ocean, affecting coral, shellfish, and other marine life.

“I went back 30 years later and those same reefs were black and gray, as if they were covered in a layer of ash,” McMahon said. “I picked up a (sea snail) blackened on top and looked at it. It was alive inside and colorful underneath. I realized that ocean acidification was real, and the average person doesn’t see that. They look at the surface of the sea and think, ‘wow, isn’t the sunset beautiful?’ They don’t know what’s underneath.”

‘Sailing Lessons’

McMahon had an idea for a wind turbine based on how sailboats catch and use the wind. He wrote a patent for it in 2007, and put it on the shelf until 2012 when he and Fitzmaurice began research and development on design.

To date, the company has designed three models of rooftop turbines, the most promising of which features both wind and solar technologies built into one unit. This hybrid model is especially designed for tall commercial buildings, taking advantage of the updrafts of higher altitudes. Not only is the wind better up high, but Primo Wind’s hybrid model makes more sense than solar panels on tall buildings due to rooftop space constraints, McMahon said. Skyscrapers in particular will always have a relatively small amount of roof space compared with the building’s total square footage.

“Just like wind, solar doesn’t work everywhere,” said Jason Anderson, president and CEO of Cleantech San Diego. “Distributed generation energy (energy generated on-site) is becoming more important all the time and rooftop wind, especially on commercial buildings, makes a lot of sense.”

Wind Energy’s 63% Share

In the U.S., nearly 63 percent of all renewable energy comes from wind power, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. But “small wind energy” has historically been saddled with a reputation for poor performance, McMahon said. That disappointment often comes from misunderstanding how wind energy works, and where it’s best deployed.

“Just because your wind turbine is spinning, it doesn’t mean its generating power,” McMahon said. “The power curve on turbines is often really flat until wind reaches 20-25 mph and then it hockey-sticks up. A lot of people don’t understand that, and they get disappointed when they’re not seeing any benefit even though their turbine is always spinning.”

Primo Wind is combating that challenge by doing extensive pilot testing, incorporating solar into its wind turbines, and even suggesting that their customers use separate solar panels in tandem with wind power to get the utmost efficiency.

“Although wind won’t work everywhere, where there is wind and the opportunity for it to blow day and night, it can actually be very competitive and complement solar output,” Anderson said. “Primo Wind has always said they are an ‘and’ technology rather than an ‘or’ technology.”

McMahon acknowledges that San Diego is not necessarily the company’s target market.

“When you go into a wind regime like Hawaii, where there are northeast trades that blow 15-20 mph all day every day, these units are especially efficient,” McMahon said.

In winds of 20 mph, the Primo unit would deliver 1,000 watts per hour.

The company has already launched pilot programs with an international sports complex in Hawaii, where the unit’s curved design is expected to perform well under the region’s wind conditions while also preventing endangered species of birds from flying inside.

Although McMahon says the company is still pre “official” launch, the company has sold units to the U.S. Navy for off-grid deployment in the Arctic. Primo Wind is also running various pilots around town, including one with Intuit Inc. (which could result in an 80-unit purchase from Primo Wind if all goes well).

McMahon said the company should hit $500,000 in revenue before the year’s end, with several purchase orders for units ranging in price from $1,900 to $10,000 each already in the works.

McMahon said he hopes that Primo Wind’s hybrid technologies will help clean energy combat cheap oil. “Right now, oil is super cheap, but it won’t be super cheap forever,” he said. “Continuing to burn fossil fuels is degrading everything. It’s not just pollution or global warming; the degradation is more than what we can see. We have to start paying attention.”

PRIMO WIND INC.

CEO: Ned McMahon

Revenue: Projecting $500,000 in 2016

No. of local employees: 5

Investors: Not disclosed

Headquarters: Shelter Island

Year founded: 2013

Company description: Rooftop wind turbine company

Key factors for success: Hybrid design meets the needs of many commercial players

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