Thursday, October 23, 2008

Blowing in the wind


For anyone that has stopped by to read this blog you will see that we do not post very regularly. Frankly, we post when there is news that most do not report on. At the risk of sounding repeative viva-ve a prior post "Which Way is the Wind Blowin" we felt it was important to report on a press conference that took place in Poughkeepsie on Wednesday, October 15.

A startup company AeroCity, LLC has introduced a wind power turbine for urban rooftops. The first Aerotecture wind turbine sits a top of a commercial structure in the City of Poughkeepsie and can be seen but not heard at 322 Mill Street. The beauty of the urban wind turbine is the size and the punch that it delivers in terms of kilowatts per hour for wind power generation. "The concept is that these wind turbines are small enough to be brought up in a elevator and be assembled on a roof without the need for a building permit," said Bill Jacoby, AeroCity LLC's President. The basic Aerotecture wind turbine has a rated capacity of 1.5 kilowatts per hour. What makes this product unique is that multiple units can be linked together providing even more power. Jacoby also added that while the unit atop its first building is vertical, it can also be fitted horizontally on tall buildings in cities like New York and Chicago or on bridges.

AeroCity, LLC is a participant in the Hudson Valley Center for Innovation's [HVCFI] Cleantech Acceleration Program [CAP]. HVCFI, a Lake Katrine based High Tech Incubator with a satellite office in Sullivan County, produced the event for AeroCity, LLC.

On hand to help unveal the wind turbine was Congressman John Hall and Assemblyman Joel Miller who both represent the City of Poughkeepsie. Assemblyman Kevin Cahill who represents most of Ulster County and who Chairs the Assembly Energy Committee spoke about green/clean energy highlighting the AeroCity accomplishments. An accomplished business owner and candidate for Ulster County Executive Len Bernardo was in attendence.

Les Neumann, HVFCI's Executive Director who first described the CAP program and the Incubator introduced Bill Jacoby. Later in the program Sarah Osgood, from NYSERDA, along with Assemblyman Cahill announced that AeroCity had been awarded a $1 million grant which will help fund further development and manufacturing of the product to be built in Ulster County. Demonstration model orders will be fulfilled by December 15th 2008.

For further information about AeroCity, LLC check out their web site at: http://www.aerocityinc.com or by calling Jacoby at: 518-697-0633.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

i was listening to day to WKNY's SpeakOut show. I was happily surprised that this wind turbine was brought up. I was disappointed that Dave Donaldson didn't know anything about this.

Seems to me that Dave has not been following any economic development efforts outside of TSEC.

Anonymous said...

Put one in the UC Leglislative chamber - the wind will make it work.

Anonymous said...

I'm happy to see that Len Bernardo was there. He really cares about Economic Development in Ulster County.

Anonymous said...

Wow!!! Great article. I wish I knew about it. I would like to have attended.

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