Pika Energy – Renewable Energy for Homes
Posted by Christine Johnson
on Jan 20, 2015
Bill Hertzel, Director of Operations for Pika Energy in Westbrook, was our guest and speaker on January 20. Pika Energy designs, manufactures and sells small wind turbines for residential use. Their goal is to provide attractive, reliable, and cost effective renewable energy for homes. They currently employ 10 at Bradley Dr in the industrial park between Saco and Spring Streets.
Their customers are both on and off the electric grid. The turbines can be connected to batteries to store energy produced. The turbines provide 1.6kwh, about half that needed for an average home. They can be used in conjunction with solar panels to provide enough energy to fully power a home. Pika sells their turbines through dealer-installers who put together packages appropriate for each customer. They continue to grow, with installations currently in 17 US States and in Chile.
Pika’s wind turbine blades are small, about 7 meters in diameter. This provides the quiet operation needed in residential applications. They are placed 30´above the tree line, to avoid turbulent winds. They are also designed to reduce maintenance with no gears and redundant bearings. Should a turbine need maintenance, the poles they are mounted on are hinged to allow them to be lowered for ease of access.
Pika Energy has four patents on their intellectual property:
Blades – Injection molded with hollow core to make them light and inexpensive
Brake – Safety brake prevents turbines from spinning too fast so they don’t spin out of control
Micro Grid – Can be used to connect turbines and solar panels to charging devices
Distributed MPPT – Maximum power point tracking or distributed power harvesting to maximize usable power
Pika buys from many local suppliers in Westbrook and around southern Maine. Their service partners and investors are also local. Their partners include: Clark Insurance, Cross Insurance, Gorham Savings, GWI, Maine Angels, Maine Venture Fund, Creative Imaging Group, D&G Machine, Eastern Industrial Automation, ODAT Machine, Motion Industries and Volk Packaging, among others. Pika Energy is not a publically traded company.
Looking ahead, they see their next steps in two key areas: 1) Remote off grid telecom – provide power to wireless towers. 2) High performance DC buildings and data centers – connect turbine and solar panels to grids that provide power to buildings with high electrical demand to reduce costs and dependence on the power grid.