Small-scale turbine manufacturer Endurance Wind Power is gearing up to take advantage of growing demand for renewable energy options in North America and Europe.
In five years, the employee-owned Surrey-based company has enjoyed encouraging sales of its five-kilowatt (kW) and 50-kW turbines, particularly in the U.S., and is now looking to broaden its horizons to Europe, where it’s considering setting up a second manufacturing plant.
Endurance has also formed a unique partnership with a local aboriginal business that will market its products to First Nations and indigenous groups across North America.
A winning trifecta of good wind resources, high electricity costs and generous government incentives in the U.S. and the U.K. is paying off for the 60-employee company, and Brian Hanson, its sales and marketing co-ordinator, says there are still other global jurisdictions to explore.
To meet soaring demand, the Surrey facility has ramped up production and is operating at full capacity.
Endurance was founded by a couple of business experts along with two engineers who have more than 20 years’ experience in the industry.
Initially the engineers, David Laino and Dean Davis, had done testing for the U.S. National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) in Golden, Colorado, and the Department of Energy, which gave them a grant to try take the concepts of a utility-scale turbine and modify it for residential use.
“So that’s how they came up with now what is our five-kilowatt S-343,” said Hanson.
The turbine, which is designed for private residences, small farms and wind power demonstration/training applications, can produce between 10,000 and 20,000 kWh per year.
A five-kWh turbine, which costs around $40,000 installed, provides enough electricity, in the right wind conditions, to power an average-size home.
When the engineers developed the product, they were put in touch with Glenn Johnson, a successful entrepreneur who had also founded Comsource Broadband Technologies Corp. Johnson had built Comsource into a top communications distributor in Canada in just six years, amassing close to $70 million in sales and $6.2 million in earnings. Johnson is Endurance’s president and CEO. He’s also a former BIV Forty under 40 award recipient who has owned successful businesses in real estate and development and the hospitality industry.
In 2001, he founded Glace Capital Corp., a merchant bank and private equity investment firm that specializes in the investment and restructuring of established companies with compelling growth opportunities.
Laino, Davis and Johnson partnered with BTI Wind Energy for U.S. distribution.
About a year later, while they were looking to develop and extend the product line, they found the technology for Endurance’s 50-kW turbine at Quebec’s Energie PGE Inc.
The 50-kW turbine, which sells for approximately $300,000, can power up to 20 average-size homes. Hanson said Endurance has more than 70 of its 50-kW and more than 100 of its five-kW turbines installed worldwide.
Under the company’s new partnership with the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, the band has a $2 million equity stake in Endurance. For that investment, the band’s TWN Wind Power Inc. will become the distributor for Endurance’s five-kW and 50-kW wind turbines in North American indigenous communities.
Endurance also said in April that its 50-kW turbines would be distributed by Evance Wind Turbines’ distribution channels across Europe, including Spain, Portugal, Denmark, France, Greece, Germany and the U.K..
According to the World Wind Energy Report, Europe accounted for 27.3% of new wind global capacity installed in 2009.
Spain now gets 15% of its electricity from wind energy; 26% of Denmark’s power comes from wind, and Robert Hornung, president of the Canadian Wind Energy Association, said at the association’s annual conference in Vancouver last week that Denmark plans to increase that to 38% by 2021. •
