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Hot renewable
energy market is brewing in The Valley
Haverhill must leverage emerging
regional economic development trend.
Former Army Captain Daniel Leary
is a lifelong North Andover resident who was deployed to Kuwait
as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Now as President for a startup
Renewable Energy firm he is fighting to make the Merrimack Valley
a global leader again.
[ Picture: Nexamp crew
after the installation of the first PanelClaw Beta Site on top
of Osgood Landing. Source: Nexamp ]
Dan Leary started what is now
Nexamp, Inc. in North Andover,
MA in a garage with co-founder Will Thompson, also an OIF Veteran
(Army CPT,) and four other Veterans after completing an MBA program
at UMASS/Amherst. In graduate school, he wrote a business plan
on clean energy and solar power, and tapped into the Massachusetts
Technology Collaborative’s new program that offered rebates
to install solar panels.
The company’s initial focus
was on solar panel installation in both residential and commercial
facilities, including Osgood Landing which is the largest privately
owned solar panel array in the state. It has since extended its
capabilities to include a wide array of renewable energy technologies
such as wind turbines.
More strikingly, Nexamp has transformed
into an energy management services company after hooking up with
a group of investors that brought capital and management expertise
to the partnership. They now will establish an energy use and
carbon emissions baseline for their customers starting with a
comprehensive energy audit to identify all potentially cost-effective
energy efficiency measures. Next, they determine the most cost-effective
combination of measures to meet the customer’s energy needs.
Finally, they engineer and implement the solutions.
Today, Nexamp provides 25 full-time
jobs. However, that is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of
the value that Dan Leary and his team bring to the region. He
is a young business leader with an open mind about competition
and what it means for the region. He proudly stated “Some
of the top few solar installers in the State are in the Merrimack
Valley.”
In our July column, we featured
another solar installer, All-Pro Solar from Haverhill. Mr. Leary
referred to All-Pro as a competitor but was quick to point out
that direct competition is good for the region and the industry.
It is leading to more efficient engineering and installation
processes and more volume which creates economies of scale and
ultimately lowers the price for commercial, residential and government
customers. The value proposition for renewable energy is strengthening
for all three market sectors and the Valley is a driver.
The days of major billion dollar
corporations controlling huge markets, such as Microsoft in the
PC software market, are coming to an end. Today, a small company
such as Nexamp, with an innovative management team and forward
looking business strategy, can be the catalyst for a regional
eco-system in emerging technology markets, such as Renewable
Energy.
For example, Mr. Leary came up
with the concept of the Polar Bear solar panel mounting system,
and then spun off a new business, PanelClaw, Inc., also in North
Andover, to develop it. Costa Nicolaou is the President of PanelClaw.
Mr. Leary astutely identified a major deficiency in solar mounting
systems in the industry and filled the gap with an innovative
design that reduces the component count and installation time.
According to Mr. Leary, “There are over a thousand Polar
Bear mounting systems in beta sites in the Merrimack Valley.
PanelClaw has signed a multi-year distribution agreement with
the second largest solar distributor, groSolar, Inc.”
The ripple effect from Nexamp
does not stop there. PanelClaw needed a manufacturing partner
to produce the mounting systems. They partnered with Olympic
Engineering in Haverhill’s Ward Hill Business Park, which
is metal machine shop, to extend the regional impact.
What kind of mindset was needed
for a Veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom to quickly become a
player in the emerging Renewable Energy market and a catalyst
for economic development in the Merrimack Valley? Mr. Leary’s
golden rule: “I can accept the answer “no” from
physics, but not from an organization.”
What It All Means
In the past several months, we have written about several companies
in the Renewable Energy Sector that are located in our region.
Together, they are forming an emerging eco-system of competitors,
partners and spin-offs that are seeking to reach critical mass
to become an economic development engine for the region.
Our Recommendations
One of the important recent events has been the Merrimack Valley’s
Planning Commissions' Economic Vision process. This vision is
provided to the state and used as a basis for state investments
in the region. The vision calls for the region to provide “an
environment of innovation” that will encourage start-ups.
It also calls for a "regional branding program" that
would "reinforce the image of the Merrimack Valley as a
cluster for technology investment". Specific action items
identified are: 1) Increase coordination between economic and
community development groups, 2) Expand the “Means Business”
website, and 3) Explore best practices from around the country
on regional branding efforts and interagency cooperation. To
all of these we say, Hurrah!
We believe a regionally branding
campaign should be initiated now, such as the Genetown branding
campaign for Boston and surrounding area, embarked upon by The
Massachusetts Biotechnology Council and Biospace.com. The Genetown
campaign, first initiated in 1993, is a collaborative branding
effort to promote the regional biotech industries and investment
opportunities. The campaign is part of a larger effort organized
by Biospace.com to help brand “Hotbed” regions in the
U.S. and Canada where biotech industries are strong. Other Hotbed
regions include Biotech Bay, centered in San Francisco; BioCapital,
centered in Washington D.C.; and BioForest, that includes Seattle
and Southwest Canada. As explained on the Biospace website: "As
regions compete for resources, these marketing and branding campaigns
help to attract capital, talent and other resources to specific
geographic areas".
“Innovation Valley,”
or alternative, could be our signature brand, analogous to “Genetown,”
and each of the Merrimack Valley’s economic development
clusters, such as Renewable Energy, could be branded as a “Hotbed.”
We have already developed a web site at our cost, www.ivalley.org,
for stakeholder collaboration and branding across the Merrimack
Valley.
The way ahead: regional leaders
are needed to step up.
The Renewable Energy Eco-System
in the Merrimack Valley
Companies that we have covered:
- Solectria Renewables of Lawrence
- designs and manufactures premium efficiency, high reliability
power electronics and systems for renewable power generation;
- Nexamp of North Andover - installs
solar panels and other renewable energy solutions and provides
energy management services;
- All-Pro Solar of Haverhill -
installs solar panels and other renewable energy solutions;
- PanelClaw of North Andover -
designs the Polar Bear revolutionary flat roof photovoltaic mounting
system;
- Olympic Engineering of Haverhill
- manufactures the Polar Bear solar mounting system;
- Powerhouse of Lawrence - green
and modular home builder that uses “healthy” materials;
- Evergreen Solar, Fort Devens
- one of the largest solar panel manufacturers in the country.
Their products are used across the Merrimack Valley.
Some additional companies (courtesy
of the Merrimack Valley Economic Development Council’s web
site):
- Environmental Solar Systems
of Methuen – designs and manufactures a variety of solar-powered
products for home use;
- Ulvac Technologies of Methuen
- the North American headquarters of a Japanese company, Ulvac
is a leading equipment supplier for solar cell manufacturing
industry.
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