Gain With the Wind

Greenville has never been home to much of the energy industry, compared with cities such as Houston; Tulsa, Okla.; or Anchorage, Alaska.

Turns out, though, Greenville beats every other metro area in the country in one narrow aspect of the industry: wind energy innovation.

According to a new study from the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C., think tank, inventors in Greenville were responsible for 172 wind energy patents over the past five years, more than any other metro area in the country.

Not bad for an area that isn’t windy enough for wind turbines to pay for themselves.

Big and Small Businesses

The biggest reason Greenville leads the nation in wind energy patents is because it’s home to General Electric Co.’s wind energy engineering team.

The Boston-based conglomerate is the nation’s No. 2 maker of wind turbines. About 300 employees at its Greenville complex, most of them engineers, are constantly calculating and tinkering in an effort to improve the machines that resemble giant outdoor fans.

But GE isn’t the only reason Greenville ranks high in wind patents.

Local inventor Jerry Barber filed six of the wind energy patents that Brookings found originated in the Greenville area during the 2012–2016 period, according to his patent lawyer.

Barber, who claims a total of 12 wind energy patents, founded and ran an amusement ride company in Greenville before turning his attention to wind energy seven years ago.

His novel wind turbine design borrows features of a Ferris wheel. It uses five blades inside of a ring instead of the usual three blades with no ring.

As the turbine wheel turns in the wind, it turns rubber tires along the rim of the wheel that are connected to a shaft that turns a generator. The arrangement is similar to how rubber tires along the rim of a Ferris wheel are used to turn it.

Barber’s fledgling wind energy company, BarberWind Turbines, hasn’t yet begun manufacturing turbines, but it has erected a prototype in the Oklahoma panhandle for testing.

Patents Matter

The fact that Greenville ranks No. 1 in wind energy patents is more than simply an interesting bit of trivia.

According to the Brookings Institution, “Patenting activity has been shown to be positively correlated with regional economic health, as high rates of patent creation are geographically associated with higher-than-average wages, lower regional unemployment, and more startup company activities.”

Doug Kim, a local patent attorney who counts Barber among his clients, said Greenville could benefit economically if it establishes a reputation for innovation in wind energy.

“If we become known as the place where all the smart people are for wind energy, we could create a wind energy hub,” Kim said. “Universities get involved, companies get involved, and it builds an ecosystem. Asheville and breweries. Silicon Valley and software companies. When an area gets a niche, the economy tends to thrive.”

A Missing Piece

So far, however, South Carolina doesn’t have much of what would be a key element of any wind energy industry cluster: manufacturing.

The state Commerce Department lists just one wind energy manufacturer in the Upstate: A South Korean company called Iljin makes wind turbine bearings at a plant in Greer.

Elsewhere in South Carolina, two other companies make wind turbine parts at factories in Sumter and North Charleston.

GE used to manufacture wind turbine “machine heads” in Greenville, but moved that activity back to its main wind turbine plant in Pensacola, Fla.

North Charleston, Too

Greenville isn’t the only place in South Carolina where GE conducts wind energy research.

The company is the biggest user of Clemson University’s wind turbine drivetrain test facility in North Charleston, the SCE&G Energy Innovation Center, according to Ed Hall, general manager of engineering for GE’s onshore wind energy business.

Hall, who is based in Greenville, said GE is currently taking 100 percent of the available time on one of two wind turbine test stands at the research facility, which was paid for in part by a $45 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy and which Clemson says is the most advanced facility of its kind in the world.

GE also conducts wind energy research in Schenectady, N.Y., which is headquarters for its onshore wind energy business. The Brookings study found that area to be the nation’s No. 2 metro area for wind energy patents, with 109 over the five-year period.

Unconventional Turbines

Barber, the Greenville inventor, said his company has interested customers, but it can’t set prices yet because it can’t accurately calculate production costs and can’t say when product would be delivered.

Unlike conventional wind turbines, Barber’s turbines don’t have a nacelle and gearbox mounted at the top of a tower, a difference he says makes them less expensive to buy, install, and maintain.

Earlier this year, his company erected its 800-kilowatt model on the grounds of Tri-County Electric Cooperative in Hooker, Okla., as part of a demonstration project.

Barber said the turbine with a wheel 170 feet in diameter is not yet connected to the electrical grid.

“We’ve probably got another month of testing yet before we turn the switch on,” the 78-year-old Ohio native said.

He’s also designed an offshore wind energy system that consists of two 1-megawatt turbines mounted on a barge. To help bring that system to market, Barber said he’s struck an alliance with Keystone Engineering, a Louisiana company that designs platforms for offshore oil rigs and wind farms.

Barber said he thinks a good market for his turbines is any place where diesel is used to generate electricity — such as islands in the Caribbean. It’s impractical to generate electricity with coal or natural gas on small island nations, he said.

Barber said BarberWind has identified a factory in Concordia, Kan., to make its onshore turbine and the wheels of its offshore system.

But there’s no agreement to make the products exclusively at the Kansas plant, he said.

The manufacturing process does not involve sophisticated equipment, Barber said, adding, “There’s a dozen towns in South Carolina that have shops that could build our wind turbines.”

Vestas: 43%
GE: 41.6%
Siemens: 10%
All others: 5.4%

Source: American Wind Energy Association