2016 Arch Grants cohort member Accelerate Wind just landed a $250,000 grant from Innovate Alabama. In total over $4.5M has been awarded to 30 entrepreneurs across 6 Alabama cities.
“Thanks to the collaborative efforts of the Alabama Legislature and our state’s innovation ecosystem, we have the opportunity to connect forward-thinking entrepreneurs and innovators who are looking to make a difference across the state” – Dave King, former Dynetics Group president and Alabama Innovation Corporation board member said in a statement.
Accelerate Wind LLC launched in May 2016. The company filed for a patent in 2018 for a multi-bladed rotor connected to a continuously variable transmission, a flywheel and a generator. The startup is headquartered in the T-Rex building, downtown St. Louis. The company secured a Phase I SBIR grant for $225,000 in 2019 and a $1,000,000 Phase II in 2021, both from the National Science Foundation.
Also in 2021, The company was selected for the U.S. Department of Energy, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Distributed Wind Competitiveness Improvement Project. The CIP grant funds a 2 year project for pre-production prototype development. Accelerate Wind is one of eight awardees that will share $2.2M in DOE funding and leverage about $1.3M of industry cost share.
The company technology is aimed to improve cost-efficiency and power potential with a roof-edge wind capture technology (vertical axis wind turbine) and to develop a commercial product that is code compliant, aesthetically pleasing, easy to install and commercially scale-able as well as reliable and properly certified. The SBIR grants lay out a commercialization strategy that relies on appealing to existing solar system installers by adding an easy to install wind collection system to their renewable energy product offerings. Accelerate Wind CEO Erika Boeing was not immediately available for comment for this article.
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