Alternative Energy/IP Profile of Biggest for-profit companies in AE
Answer the questions:
What are the 10 biggest for-profit companies in this field?
See the 3 charts inserted below which split the leading companies between the fields of wind, solar, and tidal/wave.
How is the market distributed?
Wind The top ten companies account for 85% of the global turbine market [[1]] The market leader is Vestas with 19.8% of the market but GE ENergy is growing quickly and has nearly caught up with 18.6% of the market. [[2]] The biggest change to this distribution is likely to come from Chinese manufacturers who are expanding and bringing down the cost of manufacturing turbines. [[3]]
Solar
Tidal
Where are they located? Are there any incentives for specific locations?
The majority of the companies are locate in the north east or mid Atlantic states or in California. This pattern most likely takes advantage of the leading universities that are located in these areas.
Correlate them with their main outputs (Data. Narratives. Tools)
It does not appear that regional clusters develop when outputs are correlated.
Vestas
Data
- Collaboration with Boeing: [[4]]
[[5]]
- "exploring possible civilian collaborative technology research
projects in areas such as aerodynamics, structural health monitoring, and composite materials fabrication processes, design and analysis"
- The collaboration will take place both in Europe and the USA
Narratives
- The new Brighton, CO facilities include Vestas Business Academy for training and development of employees [[6]]
Tools
- Factories for the production of wind blades [[7]]
- The new Brighton, CO facilities a technology and production engineering office [[8]]
Data Data is largely drawn produced by government and non-profit actors. This data is made freely available as a means of promoting alternative energy innovation within a region. For example, many coastal states have developed and provided wind maps as a means for enticing developers to consider their coastline for offshore wind development.
Narratives For-profit narratives are probably produced in trade journals and industry texts.
Tools
- All the companies fall under the tool creation output. Each industry, however creates different tools and some of the industries have more variation in tool type than other.
- For example
- Wind companies are split in their approaches because onshore wind has begun to grow but offshore wind is still relatively experimental in the US despite European offshore installations.
- Solar is shifting cell technologies to a more efficient method of production but the industry shift is relatively uniform and the palyers that dominated the previous technology are successfully transitioning to the newer technology.
- Tidal/Wave is very immature technology and it makes sense that without a leading successful model that there is still a lot of experimenting and variation. The tool diversity is best demonstrated by the leading companies in the field who have largely chosen different approaches to solving the same problem.
- For example
Understand and identify cases where these companies are “experimenting” or “adopting” commons-based approaches
coming soon
Wind
- The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has created a collaboration with the six leading wind turbine makers to promote advanced research and development [[9]] [Full text of the Memorandum of Understanding]
- Formed through a memorandum of understanding
- "DOE and the six turbine manufacturers will collaborate to gather and exchange information in the following areas:
- 1) Turbine Reliability and Operability Research & Development to create more reliable components; improve turbine capacity factors; and reduce installation and operations and maintenance costs.
- 2) Siting Strategies to address environmental and technical issues like radar interference in a standardized framework based on industry best practices. Standards Development for turbine certification and universal generator interconnection.
- 3) Manufacturing advances in design, process automation and fabrication techniques to reduce product-to product variability and premature failure, while increasing the domestic manufacturing base.
- 4) Workforce development including the development, standardization and certification of wind energy curricula for mechanical and power systems engineers and community college training programs."
- The information exchanged only defines the needs and does not appear to involve exchanging solutions.
Identify these cases and treat them as entities that will also be placed in our mapping*device (the quadrants)
Macro Comparative View of Wind, Solar, and Tidal
Identify what companies are the “Microsofts” of the field and what companies are the “IBMs” of the field
coming soon
Wind Companies | 2008 Revenue | Headquarters | Primary Outputs | Instances of Commons-based approaches |
Vestas | â¬6.035 billion
|
Randers, Denmark | development, manufacturing, marketing and maintenance of wind power systems. | ? |
Clipper Windpower | ?
|
London, England | turbine manufacturing and wind project development company | ? |
GE Energy | US$ 182.515 billion
|
Atlanta, GA | Wind turbine suppliers. Over 10,000 worldwide wind turbine installations. | ? |
Suzlon | $2.8 billion
|
Randers, Denmark (moving to Aarhus, Denmark) | supplier of wind turbines | ? |
Gamesa | â¬3.274 billion (2007)
|
Navarra, Spain | The company participates in"promotion, construction and sale of solar and wind farms; engineering, design, manufacture and sale of wind generators; energy solutions" | ? |
Solar Companies | Revenue ($m) | Headquarters | Primary Outputs | Instances of Commons-based approaches |
SunPower | ?
|
San Jose, CA | designs, manufactures and markets high-performance solar electric power technologies. | ? |
First Solar | $638 million (2007)
|
Tempe, AZ | design and manufacture solar modules | ? |
SunTech | ?
|
Jiangsu Province, People's Republic of China | Wind turbine suppliers. Over 10,000 worldwide wind turbine installations. | ? |
Evergreen Solar | ?
|
Marlboro, MA | "develops, manufactures and markets solar power products" | ? |
Applied Materials | $9.734 Billion (2007)
|
Santa Clara, CA | provides Nanomanufacturing Technology solutions for the global semiconductor, flat panel display, solar and related industries | ? |
Tidal Companies | Revenue ($m) | Headquarters | Primary Outputs | Instances of Commons-based approaches |
Verdant Power | ?
|
New York, NY | designs, analyzes, develops for manufacture tidal electric power technologies. | ? |
Ocean Power Technologies, Inc | ?
|
Pennington, NJ | Company focuses on offshore wave power technology, specifically their PowerBuoy® system | ? |
Palamis | ?
|
Edinburgh, Scotland | Manufacturer of offshore wave power technology, specifically the Pelamis Wave Energy Converter. This is a relatively mature technology that is deployed for commercial power generation. | ? |
Wave Dragon ApS | ?
|
Copenhagen, Denmark | Tidal energy manufacturer producing a floating slack-moored energy converter of the overtopping type. | ? |
Hammerfest Strom | ?
|
Hammerfest, Norway | develops and manufacturers tidal power stations. | ? |
Background for Questions:
Alternative Energy Market Information
Title: Clean Tech LLC (San Francisco, CA)
- Home page: http://cleantech.com
- Clean Tech Stock Index (76 companies, a good list of industry leaders): http://cleantech.com/index/index.cfm
- Google Finance: http://www.google.com/finance?q=++CLEANTECH+INDEX
Wind
Market Information
- Wind Power in the United States - 10 Companies to Watch
- America Wind Energy Association
- Annual US Wind Power Rankings Track Industry’s Rapid Growth (2007)
- http://www.awea.org/newsroom/releases/Annual_US_Wind_Power_Rankings_041107.html
- Annual US Wind Power Rankings Track Industry’s Rapid Growth (2007)
- Wind Farm Development
Leading Companies
Vestas (Denmark)
- Home page: http://www.vestas.com/
- Google Finance: http://www.google.com/finance?q=CPH%3AVWS
- Annual Report: http://www.vestas.com/Files/Filer/EN/Investor/Financial_reports/2008/2008_AR_UK.pdf
Clipper Windpower (headquarters in the US but listed on the London Stock Exchange)
- Home Page: http://www.clipperwind.com/
- Google Finance: http://www.google.com/finance?q=LON:CWP
- 2007 Annual Report: http://www.clipperwind.com/pdf/clipper_2007_annual_report.pdf
GE Energy (Atlanta, GA)
- Home page: http://www.gepower.com/home/index.htm
- Google Finance: http://www.google.com/finance?cid=5612314
Suzlon (international, location in Chicago, IL for marketing only)
- 5th leading supplier of wind turbines in the world
- Home Page: http://www.suzlon.com/
- Annual Report: http://www.suzlon.com/Content/Publication/AnnualReports_PDFs/Annual_Report_07-08.pdf
Gamesa (Navarra, Spain)
- The companies participates in â"promotion, construction and sale of solar and wind farms; engineering, design, manufacture and sale of wind generators; energy solutions" (Google Finance)
- Home Page: http://www.gamesacorp.com/en
- Google Finance: http://www.google.com/finance?q=gamesa
Annual Report: http://www.gamesacorp.com/files/File/MemoriaAnual2007_en.pdf
Developers
Blue Water Wind (Hoboken, NJ)
National Wind (Minneapolis, MN)
Solar
Market Information
- Solar Energy's Sunny Side: The credit crunch is putting the breaks on the plans of many solar companies. The survivors will be those with disruptive technologies.
Leading Companies
SunPower
- Home page: http://www.sunpowercorp.com/
- Google Finance: http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:SPWRB
- 10K annual report: http://investors.sunpowercorp.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=867773-09-11
designs, manufactures and markets high-performance solar electric power technologies
15 years of research and development
solar cells and solar panels are manufactured using proprietary processes
IP Strategy:
"We rely on a combination of patent, copyright, trade secret, trademark and contractual protections to establish and protect our proprietary rights.â" Form 10-K Annual Report 2008
"Although we apply for patents to protect our technology, our revenue is not dependent on any particular patent we own.â"
First Solar (Tempe, AZ)
- Home page: http://www.firstsolar.com/
- Google Finance: http://www.google.com/finance?q=FSLR
- 10K Annual Report: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1274494/000095013409003635/p14089e10vk.htm
- News: First Solar's Cautious Tone Weighs Down Solar Sector http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090225-714525.html?mod=rss_Hot_Stocks
"We design and manufacture solar modules using a proprietary thin film semiconductor technologyâ" 2009 10K
proprietary production process
"We rely primarily on a combination of patents, trademarks and trade secrets, as well as employee and third party confidentiality agreements, to safeguard our intellectual property.â" 2009 10K
- US Patents
- 23 patents
- 37 patent applications pending
- Foreign Patents
- 17 patents
- 70 patent applications pending
SunTech
- Home Page: http://www.suntech-power.com/
- Google Finance: http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NYSE:STP
- Form 20F http://library.corporate-ir.net/library/19/192/192654/items/287738/SuntechPowerHol20F.pdf
Evergreen Solar
- Home page: http://www.evergreensolar.com/
- Google Finance: http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:ESLR
- 10K annual report: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/947397/000095013508001256/b68105ese10vk.htm
"Develop, manufacture and market solar panels utilizing our proprietary String Ribbontm technologyâ"
- Patents
- 22 U.S. patents,
- 7 Indian
- 6 European
- Pending Patents
- 20 U.S. patent applications
- 26 foreign patent applications
Applied Materials
- Google Finance: http://www.google.com/finance?q=AMAT
- SunFab: http://www.appliedmaterials.com/products/solar_sunfab_3.html
- Solar Strategy: http://www.appliedmaterials.com/news/solar_strategy.html
Tidal
Market Information
Tidal energy extraction: renewable, sustainable and predictable
Table 1. Tidal energy extraction device overview (includes the companies associated with each technology)
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_go2834/is_1_91/ai_n29429525/pg_16
- Marine Current Turbines Ltd. (UK)
- Hammerfest Strom (Norway)
- Tidal hydraulic Generator Ltd. (UK)
- SMD Hydrovision(UK)
- Engineering Business Ltd. (UK)
- Blue Energy Inc. Canada (Canada)
- Verdant Power (USA)
- Tidal Electric (UK)
- Tidal Stream (UK)
- La Rance Barrage (France)
- Lunar Energy Ltd (UK)
Leading Companies
Verdant Power (US)
- Home page: http://verdantpower.com/
- Address:
- 888 Main Street
- The Octagon
- Suite 1
- New York, NY 10044-0213
- United States
- Phone:
- 703-528-6445
Kinetic Hydro Power Systems
tested in East River, USA
Founded in 2000
Additional Links:
http://cleantech.com/news/companies/verdant-power
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Verdant_Power
http://venturebeat.com/2008/04/14/ontario-government-backs-verdant-power-tidal-energy-project/
Ocean Power Technologies, Inc
- Home page: http://www.oceanpowertechnologies.com/
- Google Finance: http://www.google.com/finance?q=OPTT
- Address:
- 1590 Reed Road
- Pennington
- New Jersey 08534
- USA
- Phone:
- +1 609 730 0400
Palamis (UK)
- Home page: http://www.pelamiswave.com/
- Address:
- Pelamis Wave Power Ltd.
- 31 Bath Rd, Leith,
- Edinburgh
- EH6 7AH
- Scotland. UK
- Phone:
- +44 (0) 131 554 8444
Floating, articulated device
Wave Dragon ApS (Denmark)
- Home page: http://www.wavedragon.net/
- Address:
- Blegdamsvej 4
- DK-2200 Copenhagen N
- Denmark
- Phone:
- + 45 3536 0219
Slack-moored overtopping. Sea testing in Nissum Bredning, Denmark
Hammerfest Strom
- Home page: http://www.tidevannsenergi.com/
- Address:
- Hammerfest Strøm AS
- Address: Sjøgata 6
- Postaladdress: Boks 403, 9615 Hammerfest *
Phone:
- +47 78406200
"The Blue Concept;" Sea testing in Norwegian Strait of Kvalsundet, Norway