NGenTec Limited Secures GBP 2 Million in Funding (UK)

NGenTec has secured inward investment of £2 million from Amsterdam based SET Venture Partners and Scottish Enterprise’s Scottish Co-investment Fund (“SCF”) (£1 million each) to enable the company to design, manufacture and test its innovative generator technology for the multi-megawatt offshore wind turbine market.

The investment follows a recent £800,000 grant from the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s (“DECC”) Environmental Transformation Fund.

While preserving all the advantages which direct drive technology has over gear-boxes for use in offshore wind turbines, NGenTec has created a solution that is up to 50% lighter compared to existing direct-drive generators. This lower weight translates fully into lower costs for the construction of offshore direct drive wind turbines.

The key technological advantage is that NGenTec’s generator arrangement eliminates the undesirable magnetic forces between the moving and stationary parts, minimising the possibility of failure and reducing wind turbine downtime.

A spin-out company from the University of Edinburgh, NGenTec was incorporated in 2009 and aims to become a leading UK supplier of generators and associated engineering services directly to wind turbine manufacturers.

The offshore wind energy market is experiencing stong growth. The European Wind Energy Association forecasts that by 2020 there will be 7GW of new wind turbine installations annually, which would represent a market worth €8 billion per year.

Based in Edinburgh, NGenTec is expected to expand its workforce by 20 over the next two years.

Derek Shepherd, Chairman of NGenTec Limited said:

“We are delighted to have secured this investment from SET and SCF. It is a major step forward. Along with the existing financial support from DECC we are now in a position to prove our novel generator technology. This means we can move towards manufacturing our generators and taking them to market, where we are already finding a very receptive audience.”

NGenTec’s novel generator technology has been developed over the last five years through the University of Edinburgh with the support of grants from the Scottish Enterprise’s Proof of Concept Fund. Since NGenTec incorporated in 2009, the company has benefitted from the support of Scottish Development International, Scottish Enterprise’s SMART grant scheme and the Scottish Enterprise High Growth Unit. Together these organisations have provided financial support towards the development of the technology and the company, and have helped to introduce the technology to the global market.

Combined with this support, the £2m equity investment from SET Venture Partners and SCF will allow the company to prove the novel generator technology at a 6MW scale in order to deliver the product to the global wind energy market in 2012. Specifically NGenTec intends to design, build and test a 1MW generator that could be stacked along the shaft of a wind turbine to produce a 6MW generator. NGenTec believes its generator technology is scalable to 6MW and beyond without the limitations of conventional generator technology.

Wouter Jonk, Managing Director of SET Venture Partners and new board member of NGenTec Limited:

“As an investor solely focussed on sustainable energy technologies we have looked at many initiatives in the offshore wind industry. NGenTec’s solution is really outstanding ! We are confident that the true value of this innovation will be adopted by wind turbine manufacturers worldwide. We are also especially excited to become part of the Scottish drive towards the creation of a world class offshore wind industry and to enter into this investment in partnership with Scottish Enterprise’s Co-investment Fund”.

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Source: ngentec, December 16, 2010