Hydrovolts Newsletter

Hydrovolts generates power from all kinds of flowing water

"Power from Water!"May 2011
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Hydrovolts' new hydropower technology taps a plentiful but overlooked global source of renewable energy from water currents in canals and channels. Hydrovolts turbines offer an economical and easy way to generate reliable, local clean power in millions of locations around the world. There's nothing else like it.

Hydrovolts' floating Flipwing turbine is simple to deploy and connect. Just drop it in the water and tether or anchor. No dams, weirs or site preparation are needed, reducing costs and minimizing environmental impacts.

Hydrovolts technology offers reliability, predictability, cost-efficiency and control unmatched by other renewable energy sources.

Hydrovolts' potential market is huge: There are tens of thousands of man-made water canals in countries around the globe whose currents are ideal for generating power from the Flipwing turbine.

Hydrovolts capitalizes upon the large global opportunity of untapped energy of controlled flowing water, enabling clean electricity in places never before possible.


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Welcome Back!
  
Hydrovolts welcomes many returning newsletter readers this month.  We found that last year a large number of people on our newsletter list - more than 1000! - somehow got moved to an "inactive" status in our newsletter mailing software.  This has been corrected, and we hope you enjoy the renewal of the newsletter.  If you do not wish to receive it in the future, just click on the "unsubscribe" link at the end of the newsletter.

For our returning readers, here's an update:  
Hydrovolts makes portable hydropower turbines to make reliable renewable energy from water currents in irrigation canals and other channels. We can finally and affordably tap the global distributed energy resource of fast water currents.
 
Since this time last year, Hydrovolts has built and installed hydrokinetic turbines, raised over $1 million from investors, won major business contests, created important business partnerships, moved to the McKinstry Innovation Center, and now has 7 employees, an aggressive turbine development schedule, and great prospects.  

Turbine Tales
  
Our "switchblade" turbine design has found another global market as a waterfall power generator.  We built a barrel rotor for our Class I (small) turbine and found a demonstration site in the wastewater treatment plant of the City of Port Orchard, Washington.  Below:  The turbine ready for installation
Hydrovolts small turbine with barrel rotor for waterfall application
Below:  The turbine making steady renewable power in the waterfall.  The next version will be larger to capture all the falling water.

Hydrovolts turbine in wastewater treatment plant waterfall

Hydrovolts is negotiating with the water treatment plant to provide a larger turbine.  We are excited about the prospects of this new market for turbines and early market research shows potential for tens of thousands of units for our patent-pending technology.

After the waterfall demo our turbine went off to a canal over the mountains in the dry lands of central Washington.  As of this writing, the turbine is installed and operating in the canal making power enough to charge batteries.  Below:  The Class 1 turbine making power in the Roza Canal.
Hydrovolts Flipwing Turbine Making Power in a Canal
  
Video of the turbine in operation is available now at the Youtube Hydrovolts Channel.
  
The Class 3 Big Turbine is under construction in Seattle with target date for testing in July.  It is being built for switchable Flipwing and Savonius blades which appear to have different optimal performance applications.  This turbine is big, the size of a school bus, and will make 10 kW in water currents of 2 m/sec velocity.  That's enough for 4 average American homes, a small factory, or an entire village in a developing country.  Below:  Hydrovolts CEO Burt Hamner with one of the two rotor sections for the Class 3 Turbine.  
Hydrovolts Savonius Big Rotor
  
New Hires
  
We welcome our new Government Business Manager, Brian Williams.  Brian retired from the US Navy as a senior Oceanographer and then became a business development manager in ocean engineering for SAIC, Inc.  Now he will help Hydrovolts market its technology and solutions to the Navy and other Federal customers, including the Army, Agriculture, Energy, Geological Survey, Bureau of Reclamation, Corps of Engineers, FERC and NOAA.
  
Our new Executive Assistant is Michelle Holmes.  She has a Master's Degree in Environmental Studies and was a Peace Corps volunteer for two years in Africa supporting the spread of energy-efficiency cooking stoves.  Michelle is an aggressive marketing pro and will lead market research and other efforts. 
  
Interns and Student Projects
  
At the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Midshipman Travis Nicks continues to demonstrate that our "backpack - style" Hydrovolts Flipwing rotor, designed by Hydrovolts's director Dr. Paul Curtis, rotates in waves and can function as a wave energy generator.  See Youtube video of the Hydrovolts Flipwing wave energy converter in operation.  We are negotiating a collaboration agreement with the Academy.  Below:  Naval Academy Midshipmen Travis Nicks and Graham Miller in the Big Wave Tank with the Hydrovolts Flipwing turbine rotor.
  
  Navy Men on Hydrovolts Watch

At Harvard, the students built and tested a vertical-axis Flipwing turbine in the Harvard Blodgett Pool.  It measures torque output using a pulley and weight system.  They got useful data and many of the students are excited to continue working with us in the future.  Hydrovolts will have one or two interns working for us in Boston this summer, if you are in Boston and want to know more please get in touch.
  
At Central Washington University a team of senior engineering students has built a Flipwing turbine prototype and is testing it in the canal flowing right through the campus. 
  
Business Development
  
In March Hydrovolts won First Prize in the international Imagine H2O Water-Energy Nexus competition, including $25,000 in legal and accounting services from Cooley LLP and PwC in San Francisco and San Jose. 
Imagine H2O logo and winner
Now these great services are ramping up.  Hydrovolts will work with the attorneys and tax / finance specialists at these great companies to open a California business office and organize demonstration projects.  With their help we are preparing a strategy for further financing to help us expand in California then around the world. 

Government Support
  
Three major Federal agencies - Energy, Interior and the Corps of Engineers - have signed a Federal Agreement to promote hydropower development.  They have now published a Funding Opportunity for Advanced Small Hydropower development, and Hydrovolts will propose a project for funding.  Other agencies with current funding opportunities for Hydrovolts include the Navy, the Army, the US Agency for International Development and the Department of Agriculture.  We are aggressively pursuing these grants. 
  
On the international level, the International Energy Agency has created Technical Committee (TC) 114, Marine and hydrookinetic energy to develop standards for technology and demonstration.  This is a high level effort with world-class experts who are mostly focused on tidal and wave power.  The work they do is directly useful to Hydrovolts in its freshwater applications and provides great structure to this new global renewable energy resource.
  
Conferences and Exhibitions

Hydrovolts CEO Burt Hamner will present a paper on hydrokinetic turbine rotor comparisons on June 16 in Boston at the TechConnect Cleantech / Water Technologies conference session.  Hydrovolts will also have an exhibit in the Clean Energy Showcase.  Mr. Hamner will also work with Harvard and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution that week.  Boston area friends are encouraged to get in touch to plan social and business meetings that week.  
  
Hydrovolts will be featured at the Water Environment Federation's big conference on Energy and Water 2011: Efficiency, Generation, Management, and Climate Impacts, in Chicago on July 31-Aug 3.  We will participate with the Imagine H2O organization which is a sponsor. 

Investment

We just returned from presenting to the Investor's Circle Spring 2011 Venture Fair & Forum on May 2-4 in downtown San Francisco. Investor's Circle is an international group of investors seeking social as well as economic impact.   This week we will be providing an update to the Keiretsu Northwest angel group.  In April we presented to the Alliance of Angels.  We can recommend their website with an excellent Guide to Investor Presentations showing how to design a slide show that gets investor interest.  We use this model for our investor presentation and we have won "Best Presenter" awards in several competitions.

Thanks again to our investors and supporters for helping us advance this great new clean energy technology for the world.
On behalf of everyone at Hydrovolts, Inc.
Our best regards,

 Burt Hamner, CEO