WindPole Ventures Raises $1 Million in Venture Capital, Debt
Posted in Wind Power on April 1st, 2010 by News Desk –
Arlington, Mass. – WindPole Ventures, a two-year-old firm that collects and distributes data on wind conditions across the U.S., has raised $1 million in a combination of venture capital and convertible debt, the company co-founder and CEO, Steve Kropper, told Smart Energy News on Thursday.
The deal involved a group of Boston-area angel investors, including Jim Lang, the former head of Cambridge Energy Research, a major consulting firm for international energy companies, governments, financial institutions, and technology providers.
Founded in 2008, WindPole has licensed space on 6,000 very tall communication towers across the U.S., where it places instruments that provide real-time data on wind conditions, which in turn is used to provide short-term forecasts on available wind power, as well as to decide where to locate new wind turbines.
Until now, most wind-condition data used by the power industry has been collected from lower towers that provide information to the aviation industry, but are not as high as typical wind turbine hubs, which range in the 80- to 100-meter height, Kropper said.
WindPole’s customers include grid operators, wind farm operators and developers, and power traders. The company charges for installing wind detection equipment at specified locations, and for long-term subscriptions to its data.
One of WindPole’s largest customers is Invenergy in Chicago.
