A Balloon in the Wind (Market)

“Some of these will come through,” said Joshua Magee, a wind analyst with Emerging Energy Research. But he said he doubts they’ll get much consideration from the conventional wind-turbine manufacturers, which have settled on a standard design that leaves little room for improvement.

The industry, Magee added, is more focused these days on deployment and keeping up with demand. “That’s not to say there’s not room for a radical new technology, potentially in the near future, but ultimately the global wind game at this time is one of implementation.”

Magenn was founded in 2004 by Fred Ferguson, 58, a leading authority on airship engineering and past consultant for Lockheed Martin Corp. and the U.S. government’s “Star Wars” defense program. It was during the 1970s and ’80s that Ferguson invented and eventually patented the Magnus Airship, a blimp designed to rotate as it moves forward in the air. This rotation allows the airship to gain lift, a phenomenon known as the Magnus Effect.

“It’s very much what you see with golf balls and baseballs,” Rivard said.

It wasn’t until 2002 that Ferguson realized his airship concept, in addition to improving the mobility of blimps, could be used as a way to produce renewable power by tapping the faster and more consistent wind speeds at higher altitudes. Electricity generated by the spinning motion of the blimp would be transmitted to the ground through its conducting tether. Ferguson researched the idea, and two years later Magenn was formed.

Skeptics initially dismissed the company’s idea as nothing more than neat pictures on a cool Web site, even as Ferguson and then-chief executive Mac Brown touted their first product release for late 2006. They wondered how, for example, such a device could be floated so high without getting in the way of airplanes, or what would happen if a hurricane or some other high-wind storm hit. There also was no evidence of a working commercial prototype. 

The 2006 date came and went with no product launch, and Magenn’s Web site grew out of date, fueling even more skepticism.

“Individual investors should stay away from this company” warned Jack Uldrich, in his recently released guide called Green Investing. “Magenn offers nothing other than a promising idea.”

But the Quercus Trust funding, followed by the hiring of a seasoned and disciplined executive like Rivard, has given Magenn a second wind, with Brown now chief marketing officer and Ferguson remaining chief technology officer.

Rivard figures he’ll need to be creative to gain initial traction in the market. He’s considering the possibility of a MARS fleet deployed and owned by Magenn, which would use a power-purchase-agreement model to sell the electrons to its first customers. He envisions floating wind farms similar in scale to what we see today on the ground. “One thing that excites me is the megawatt-plus potential of this technology.”

And he’s not too concerned about raising the capital to do it.

“We get approached by a lot of investors, so we’re quite blessed,” he said. “There’s a lot of interest in California where IT money is being recycled into cleantech, and that seems to be where most of our leads come from.”