Two million dollars isn’t what it used to be, especially for a growing Nova Scotia renewable energy company with customers all over the globe.
But it’s a beginning, and Seaforth Energy Inc. of Dartmouth — a wind turbine manufacturer with a specialty in integrating renewable energy projects — will be able to use the $2 million it’s raised recently to scale up operations in order to deliver on backlogged orders for its turbine.
Jonathan Barry, president of Seaforth Energy, says the focus on filling orders not only makes current customers happy, it helps to strengthen the company’s credibility with future customers.
The primary markets for Seaforth turbines are in the United Kingdom, Italy and the United States.
"The up-and-coming markets are Israel and, we’re hoping, depending what happens this fall, Ontario, if they bring in a new feed-in tariff. That will be a big market as well," he says.
Countries and provinces with good wind conditions and a feed-in tariff system, which obliges utilities to buy renewable electricity, are considered favourable markets for Seaforth’s AOC 15/ 50 50-kilowatt turbine, the company president says.
"We’re an all-Canadian product. We manufacture the blades and the controllers right here in Nova Scotia. The towers, we’ve worked with Cherubini (Metal Works) locally on towers and we’d love to work with them some more, but the towers can come from a variety of other sources. So it’s a cost and a shipping consideration, depending on where you’re sending it. And then the drive train is all assembled in one place; it’s actually done for us with a partner in Montreal."
Typically, he says, the various parts are all brought to the location where it is to be erected and the turbine is assembled on-site.
Innovacorp, the Nova Scotia government agency, seems to believe the prospects for Seaforth Energy are very good. Innovacorp contributed $500,000 of the $2 million from its venture capital fund. In exchange, it has taken an equity position and a seat on the Seaforth Energy board.
The rest of the $2 million in funding has come from the Business Development Bank of Canada, Seaforth Engineering Group and private investors.
Barry says his company’s 50-kilowatt turbines are a fraction of the size of the three-megawatt turbines being installed on Dalhousie Mountain, Pictou County.
"Size-wise, our turbine would go on a (30- to 36-metre) tower and it would have a rotor diameter of 15 metres. A large turbine would have a rotor diameter nowadays, probably, of 60 to 80 metres," the Seaforth Energy official told me in an interview Tuesday.
But the smaller turbines put out a significant amount of power and aren’t made to be put up in a typical backyard, says Barry.
"As an experienced wind company, we’d tell you to be cautious about putting wind turbines anywhere near residential areas or homes . . . because they’re machines, at the end of the day."
The AOC 15/ 50 is designed for institutional, commercial, industrial, agricultural and remote applications.
Creating wind turbines is an exciting growth area for the company, says Barry.
But Seaforth Energy isn’t only a turbine manufacturer. The company’s renewable energy systems integration group provides design, engineering, installation and maintenance of renewable energy systems for residential, commercial and institutional clients.
For example, although its turbines are not part of the new Halifax farmers’ market project, Seaforth Energy worked on a renewable energy aspect of the renovated building in the Halifax seaport district. The company has also done a lot of work at Universite Sainte-Anne in Church Point, Digby County, but there are more renewable energy contacts to be announced soon.
This was the first round of financing, says Barry, and more capital will be needed as the company grows.
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