When educators bemoan the fact that American students don’t score well in science compared with students in other industrial nations, they’re worried about our ability to innovate.

Science, technology, engineering and math are about problem solving, and America wants to be in the solutions business.

One problem is that not enough kids get interested.

Why should they? A UC Berkeley study last year found that in about 90 percent of California elementary schools students learn science without regularly performing hands-on experiments.

This past week, about 20 Orange County high school students (and recent grads) studied science on a Saturday – where the application turns in the wind.

They competed in a science bowl held at Modular Wind Energy in Huntington Beach…

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This is a very focused wind composites event and is well supported by the global industry.

For more information, please visit: http://www.amiplastics.com/events/Event.aspx?code=C476&sec=2612

ISO 9000 is a family of standards related to quality management systems. It is designed to aid companies in ensuring their business processes are robust and applied consistently across the entire organization, in an effort to more competently serve its customers.

To become certified as ISO 9001:2008 compliant, Modular Wind Energy underwent a 9-month process that included the implementation of a formal quality management system, robust employee training on formal operating procedures, and implementation of measurement systems related to quality. The process culminated with a 5-day, third-party audit by LRQA to confirm that Modular Wind Energy’s quality systems were fully implemented and met the standards required. Upon completion, a certificate of registration was formally issued on September 27, 2012.

Achieving ISO 9001 certification means that Modular Wind Energy was benchmarked against other mature businesses and found to have a best-in-class quality system. Certification is often viewed as a requirement to do business in the renewable energy sector.

“We recognize that building a quality, process-based business is a journey and believe we have the right organization and certification agency to ensure we continue to challenge ourselves to get better every day,” said Ken Kaser, Senior Vice President, Commercial Operations.

ISO 9001 is a worldwide standard administered by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), based in Switzerland. ISO 9001 is currently in use by close to one million organizations around the world. Additional information is available at http://www.iso.org/

About Modular Wind Energy

Modular Wind Energy produces wind turbine blades featuring a revolutionary structural technology that results in longer, lighter, more reliable blades. This allows our customers – manufacturers of multi-megawatt wind turbines – to offer a lower cost of energy.

Our patented design and production process produces the highest quality composite components, allowing us to manufacture divided blades without risk of certain serial defects associated with conventional blade building techniques. Our blades feature greater stiffness, strength, and up to 20% lighter design for very large blades, enabling larger rotors and ultimately a lower cost of energy compared to conventional blades.

Modular Wind Energy is a privately held company founded in 2008. The company is headquartered in Huntington Beach, California with a satellite office in Hamburg, Germany.

For more information, visit www.modwind.com or call (714) 373-5300.

Follow us on Twitter @ModularWind

Mr. Vaughan is a veteran of the renewable energy industry with over 10 years of executive experience at prominent wind energy companies such as: GE Energy, Clipper Windpower, and Northern Power Systems, and most recently with solar energy company Amonix.

“Now is the time when the wind energy business is seeking to lower the cost of electricity, and our blades with their innovative light and stiff structure can do just that,” said Gregor Gnaedig, CEO of Modular Wind Energy. “We feel the timing is perfect to bring someone of Charles’ caliber on to the ModWind team to work with clients to find the best possible blade solution for their wind turbines.”

The overall enhancement to the sales and marketing department comes on the heels of Modular Wind Energy entering serial production. The company has taken the necessary steps to move out of the research and development stage and into the commercialization stage with the hiring of Gnaedig as CEO and GL certification of the 45-meter blade.

“I’m very excited to join Modular Wind Energy during this pivotal time,” said Vaughan. “We have revolutionary wind turbine blade technology here which promises to lower the cost of wind energy, especially when used with multi-megawatt class wind turbines.  I look forward to helping add value to our customers:  both wind turbine manufacturers and wind energy project operators.”

He holds an M.B.A. from Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale, Arizona; as well as a B.S. in Business; Marketing and Organization Management; and a B.S. in Journalism and Mass Communications, both from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

About Modular Wind Energy

Modular Wind Energy produces wind turbine blades featuring a revolutionary structural technology that results in longer, lighter, more reliable blades. This allows our customers – manufacturers of multi-megawatt wind turbines – to offer a lower cost of energy.

Our patented design and production process produces the highest quality composite components, allowing us to manufacture divided blades without risk of certain serial defects associated with conventional blade building techniques. Our blades feature greater stiffness, strength, and up to 20% lighter design for very large blades, enabling larger rotors and ultimately a lower cost of energy compared to conventional blades.

Modular Wind Energy is a privately held company founded in 2008. The company is headquartered in Huntington Beach, California with a satellite office in Hamburg, Germany.

For more information, go to www.modwind.com or follow us on Twitter @ModularWind.

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Media Contact
David Reeve
Modular Wind Energy
dreeve@modwind.com
(714) 514-3971

ModWind’s presence at the world’s largest wind conference, Husum WindEnergy 2012, is an example of how we fit into the world market. However, we also know how important it is to have a presence in our local green community. That is why Modular Wind Energy is a proud member of CleanTech OC.

While CTO Myles Baker and other ModWind executives were busy establishing Modular Wind Energy at the international level, I had the distinct pleasure of networking with the major clean technology players in Orange County at the CleanTech OC 2012 Conference and Expo.

This all-day event was held on Tuesday, September 18, at the Hyatt Regency in Irvine, CA, and featured panel discussions involving the state of Orange County’s clean tech industry, the smart grid, and a keynote from Richard Kauffman, Senior Advisor to the US Secretary of Energy.

The panels and presentations were both informative and thought provoking, but the real success was CleanTech OC’s ability to bring together key figures from leading green technology companies. The event was a melting pot of industry leaders from every aspect of clean and renewable products and utilities alongside major green technology investors.

While not an official poll, most people I talked to raved about the event as a major success in highlighting Orange County’s push to become a leader in green technology. The members of CleanTech OC are responsible for creating thousands of jobs, and pushing for a much needed energy revolution stateside.

As long as associations like CleanTech OC continue to spread the green message, Modular Wind Energy will work along side ensuring the prosperity of clean and renewable energy both locally and abroad.

GL Renewables is part of the GL Group, the leading certification body primarily focused on the certification of wind farms, wind turbines, blades, and their components.

The Modular Wind Energy MW45 blade consists of three 15-meter sections, which were manufactured at the company’s 170,000 square foot facility in Huntington Beach, CA. The sections were shipped to the company’s Rialto, CA-based test facility, assembled into a complete blade, and tested between February and June 2012.

During each test, a representative of GL (Germanischer Lloyd) was present. The certification process involved rigorous static and fatigue testing – proving a 20-year design life for the blade – a significant achievement for any manufacturer.

Dr. Myles Baker, whom is also the co-founder and Chief Technical Officer at Modular Wind Energy, designed the blade.

“This is a tremendous milestone for the company and our blade,” says Dr. Baker. “GL certification is a necessity for doing business in our industry. This certification proves we have a great new technology for the wind industry.”

Modular Wind Energy is currently in production on its first sets of customer blades, scheduled for installation in the United States later this year.

About Modular Wind Energy
Modular Wind Energy produces wind turbine blades featuring a revolutionary structural technology that results in longer, lighter, more reliable blades. This allows our customers – manufacturers of multi-megawatt wind turbines – to offer a lower cost of energy.

Our patented design and production process produces the highest quality composite components, allowing us to manufacture divided blades without risk of certain serial defects associated with conventional blade building techniques. Our blades feature greater stiffness, strength, and up to 20% lighter design for very large blades, enabling larger rotors and ultimately a lower cost of energy compared to conventional blades.

Modular Wind Energy is a privately held company founded in 2008. The company is headquartered in Huntington Beach, California with a satellite office in Hamburg, Germany.

For more information, go to www.modwind.com or follow us on Twitter @ModularWind.

What:
Modular Wind Energy’s Chief Technical Officer Myles Baker, Ph.D. will speak on the topic: “Wind Turbine Blade Optimization”. A description of his presentation is as follows:

“In order to achieve the highest possible energy production from a given platform, optimization of the blades is critical.  This includes the traditional disciplines of aerodynamic and structural performance, as well as material selection, design concept selection, and consideration of logistics and manufacturing constraints.

In this session we present novel design concepts for advanced wind turbine blades, including advanced materials, structural concepts, and manufacturing/ logistics architectures.  The benefits of the Modular Wind Energy blade architecture to increase energy production, reduce loads, and improve overall turbine performance are demonstrated.”

When:
Wednesday September 19, the second day of the HUSUM WINDENERGY conference, from 17:00-17:45

Where:
HUSUM WindEnergy 2012 will be held at Am Messeplatz 12 – 18, 25813 Husum, Germany. The discussion will take place in conference room #2 of the Husum Zentrum (Centre).

About:
Modular Wind Energy produces wind turbine blades that feature a revolutionary structural technology that results in longer, lighter, more reliable blades. This allows manufacturers of multi-megawatt wind turbines to offer a lower cost of energy to wind generation asset owners. Modular Wind Energy is a privately held company founded in 2008. The company is headquartered in Huntington Beach, California with a satellite office in Hamburg, Germany.

To learn more, visit us at www.modwind.com and follow us on Twitter @ModularWind.

Ryan Nagle explains wind turbine blades at Landell Elementary School.

We’ve officially joined the industry movement to label June 15 as “Global Wind Day” by doing our part locally to promote wind energy in our community. Earlier this week, we were invited to speak to kids about careers in wind energy at Landell Elementary School’s annual “Career Day”.  We were impressed to see more than 60 kids turn out to greet us –  choosing to learn about wind energy over a variety of other choices offered to them.

Smart kids, too. Wind energy is rare in that as a growing industry, imagination and creativity still break new slot machines online ground every day. The kids liked that.

We gave them a look at our modular rotor blade design and challenged them to guess why a blade in 3 smaller sections is better.

Jaeden – a girl in the back row – got it right away: “to make them easier to move?” Amazing. We want to see Jaeden when she’s out of college. We might have a job for her.

We gave the students an assignment: improve upon our modular design and come up with an even better idea on transporting blades to distant wind farm locations. We wanted the out-of-the-box thinking that will inspire them to become the future innovators of our industry.

They had some good ideas: “Use airplanes to move them…put them on boats…trains… blimps.”

“Dig underground tunnels to the windfarm!” said one.

We liked: “Get large animals to pull them to the windfarm!”

All good ideas, though we’ll stick to our method of building them in smaller pieces. It works for us.

Mr. Gnädig joins Modular Wind Energy as the company emerges from a significant research and development phase into the serial production stage. The first commercial turbine blades, based on a modular 45-meter design, are scheduled for installation in the United States and Europe later this year.

During his tenure at REpower, Mr. Gnädig was responsible for the entire supply chain management including the worldwide production of turbines in Europe, Australia, Canada, India, and the United States.  “Modular Wind Energy has design technology that can truly change the supply chain as we know it,” said Mr. Gnädig. “I look forward in joining them to establish the organization as an international supplier of these innovative blades. I am convinced that many wind turbine manufacturers will be seriously looking at this technology that can improve their competitive market situation.”

“Gregor joins us at a pinnacle time in our company as we enter into the global marketplace with our blade,” says Chief Technical Officer and company co-founder, Dr. Myles Baker. “We welcome his experience and the exciting opportunity that his presence brings to our organization.”

Prior to joining Modular Wind Energy and REpower, Mr. Gnädig had various executive positions at ABB and Alstom in the U.S., Switzerland, Germany and the U.K. in the conventional power generation business. Gregor Gnädig began his career in 1987 as an engineer in the United States after graduating in mechanical engineering at the University of Karlsruhe (Germany).

About Modular Wind Energy

Modular Wind Energy produces wind turbine blades that feature a revolutionary structural technology that results in longer, lighter, more reliable blades. This allows our customers – manufacturers of multi-megawatt wind turbines – to offer a lower cost of energy to wind generation asset owners.

Our patented design and production process produces the highest quality composite components, allowing us to manufacture divided blades without risk of certain serial defects associated with conventional blade building techniques. Our blades feature greater stiffness, strength, and up to 20% lighter design for very large blades.  This enables larger rotors and ultimately a lower cost of energy when compared to conventional blades.

Modular Wind Energy is a privately held company founded in 2008. The company is headquartered in Huntington Beach, California with a satellite office in Hamburg, Germany.

For more information, visit www.modwind.com or call (714) 373-5300.
Follow us on Twitter @ModularWind

Media Contact
David Reeve
Modular Wind Energy
dreeve@modwind.com
(714) 514-3971