Ideal Power Inc. (NASDAQ: IPWR), a developer of a disruptive power conversion technology, announced recently that it has received purchase orders for six of its 30kW battery converters for use in two innovative 100kW wind turbine installations. Ideal Power’s battery converter was selected for its improvement in size, weight and efficiency in comparison to other solutions. Installation of these units is expected to be complete in early 2015.

 

This will be the first installation of Ideal Power’s products in a wind energy application and represents another attractive market opportunity for the Company. The Company believes that this order provides further validation of its patented Power Packet Switching Architecture (PPSA) technology platform, which has demonstrated scalability in a number of vertical markets.

 

The global wind turbine market is dominated by large wind farms using turbines with capacity greater than 1MW; however, there is also a small but growing market for distributed wind turbines that are located near electrical loads. 30MW of new distributed wind turbines were installed in the United States in 2013, and according to the American Wind Association, a further 130MW of distributed wind capacity was under construction at the end of the year. Following recent announcements of third-party financing for distributed wind projects, which may accelerate market adoption, Ideal Power believes that the market for distributed wind converters integrating the Company’s products may have significant growth potential.

 

Ideal Power believes there is a sizeable market opportunity for a 100kW class distributed wind turbine solution which leverages many of the advancements of MW scale turbines, but can be easily sited and installed for agricultural electrical load requirements. By integrating Ideal Power’s battery converter with the wind turbine manufacturer’s technology, the Company believes that these 100kW wind turbines will be able to achieve attractive five to six year paybacks when purchased by customers located in productive U.S. wind regions.  

 

“Ideal Power is pleased to announce its entry into the market for wind applications,” stated Dan Brdar, Chief Executive Officer of Ideal Power. “This is another indication that our highly efficient, low cost PPSA platform can support multiple vertical markets including photovoltaic, energy storage, electric vehicle charging infrastructure and distributed wind.”  

 

Ideal Power
www.IdealPower.com