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HighestWind, LLC
News and notes are invited about Highest Wind:    :  Notes@EnergyKiteSystems.net
Wind Power for low wind locations ™
Energy Glider™ systems      Member of AWEIA.

 

 

Study clip from PDF document: http://media.umassp.edu/mattcenter/cce-2009/CCE09_Notebook.pdf

The 5th Conference on Clean Energy:

Financing & Partnering for Emerging Businesses

110 Startup Companies

Highest Wind LLC

Presented by:

Dimitri Cherny, CEO and Founder

Company Overview

Highest Wind Energy Gliders™ harvest the winds a thousand feet

above the ground – blowing two to three times faster than near the

ground. These stronger and steadier winds make Energy Gliders™

cost-effective in the low-wind locations where wind turbines are not –

more than half our planet. Wind resource maps reveal that less than

15% of our planet has average near-ground wind speeds adequate for

producing electrical power cost-effectively. Wind turbines are limited to

harvesting near-ground winds by the height of their towers – a few hundred

feet at most – making them cost-effective on only a small fraction

of our planet. Energy Gliders™ are cost-effective for at least three times more locations on earth.

Highest Wind Energy Gliders™ produce more than $13,000 worth of electricity annually (130,000+ kWh at

$0.10/kWh). Designed for the largest 200,000 farms in the 45 US states with winds too low for wind turbines,

Energy Gliders™ provide a payback in less than seven years with average 30 foot winds of just 8mph. Renewable

energy incentive programs in our target states reduce that payback to less than three years. For

farms throughout the US, the USDA’s REAP program reduces payback by at least two more years making

Energy Glider purchases possible in some states with no cash out-of-pocket – and $13,000+/year of ‘free’

electricity every year thereafter.

Product/Technology Profile

Similar to a child’s kite, patent pending Energy Gliders™ fly - rising and descending - a thousand feet above

the ground (but below FAA controlled airspace) pulling a high-strength tether to spin a generator on the

ground. Energy Glider systems run continuously and automatically to provide a capacity factor of greater

than 50% at a levelized cost of energy of less than five cents per kWh – nearly as low as the largest utilityscale

wind turbines and many times lower than the best and lowest cost solar PV systems. Our first 30kW

production unit will produce more than 130,000 kWh at sites with avg. 30ft. winds of just 8mph for a lifetime of

30 years, providing more than half the electricity needs of the average US farm. With an operational requirement

of more than 160 acres of land, NIMBY is a minimal concern.

Officers and Directors

Dimitri Cherny, CEO & Founder

Ursula Schwuttke, CBPO

Diane Bourque, CFO

Contact Information

117 Cushing Road

Newmarket, NH 03857

603.969.4667

dimitri@highestwind.com

www.highestwind.com

November 12 & 13, 2009

Hynes Convention Center ∙ Boston, MA

Startup Companies 111

Markets and Applications

Our Initial market is the 200,000 largest farms in the 45 US states with winds too low to make wind turbines

cost effective - a $14B market. Early marketing and dealer efforts are focused on the top seven states with

the best combination of high electricity prices, suitable winds, and the best renewable energy incentive programs.

Initial marketing efforts are specifically targeting the largest dairy farms in those states. While they

comprise only a $290M market, with the current unsustainable market price for milk, they are eager for any

product that can reduce their costs and/or provide an additional revenue source. Our market research has

yet to find a dairy farm unwilling to purchase an Energy Glider.

Commercial Opportunity

Energy Gliders™ will be sold through existing networks of regional dealers currently selling agricultural or energy

generation equipment, all with established relationships among our most likely prospects – farms. From

a ‘self-marketing’ perspective, Energy Gliders™ are nearly perfect – visible from miles around, we anticipate

considerable word-of-mouth marketing spreading virally from each successful installation. Our marketing efforts

will be primarily ‘product-marketing’, helping our dealers identify and sell to our most likely prospects in

a variety of farming verticals. Broad marketing will be mostly PR-based – riding the ‘Green’ wave.

Competitive Advantage

Highest Wind has discovered a “blue-ocean” market – wind power for low-wind locations – that is currently

unfulfilled by any other products. Wind turbines provide payback periods of longer than a decade in these

low-wind areas. Solar PV have even longer paybacks. Anaerobic digesters have an entry price fifteen times

higher. For any type of farm seeking distributed renewable energy, nothing else works in as many locations

so cost-effectively. Four other companies are publicly developing related Airborne Wind Energy (AWE) technology

but all are targeting utility scale applications – 1Mw or greater. No other AWE developers are designing

distributed renewable energy generation systems to serve the agricultural market.

Future Financial Plans

Our past year of research has been supported primarily by more than $100k of investment from friends. Our

next two years of development and certification testing will be supported by the $5M in series-A investment

we now seek. That money will allow us to build the channel, marketing and service organization we require

before shipping the first production Energy Glider units by Q3-2011. Highest Wind LLC will remain a design,

marketing, sales and service organization – our management team’s strengths. We are outsourcing engineering

and eventually manufacturing to our highly qualified partner organizations - Goss International and

EOS Research.