Development of a Business Plan for Portable Wind Turbines
Open Access
- Author:
- Dougherty, Bridget Ayn
- Area of Honors:
- Energy, Business, and Finance
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Seth Adam Blumsack, Thesis Supervisor
Seth Adam Blumsack, Thesis Honors Advisor
Susan W Stewart, Faculty Reader - Keywords:
- Wind energy
renewable energy
portable wind turbines
Department of Energy Collegiate Wind Competition
business plan - Abstract:
- In 2014 the Department of Energy sponsored a Collegiate Wind Competition challenging interdisciplinary teams of students to design a portable wind turbine and develop a business plan for the product. This thesis focuses on the business plan portion of The Pennsylvania State University’s team, Remote Wind PSU, and investigates whether a market niche similar to those enjoyed by portable solar panels and diesel generators can be captured by a portable wind turbine. In order to evaluate a portable wind product, market research was conducted to determine the most opportune market and a financial analysis was performed to test the success of the product. The findings suggest that a portable wind turbine can be a viable product in the natural disaster aid market if the appropriate amount of funding is available and if product developers can navigate the bureaucracy of disaster relief agencies quickly. Remote Wind PSU has a projected NPV of $5.86 million after paying investors a five to one return on investment and an IRR of 2,294%. However, deviations from expected costs and investments could impact the success of the product. A sensitivity analysis was conducted to determine the robustness of the findings. Of the variables tested, NPV and IRR were most impacted by production cost variations. A 20% increase in production costs created a negative NPV of -$598,000 and an IRR of 12% while a 20% decrease generated a NPV of $9.6 million and an IRR of 2,312%. This research will hopefully spark interest in developing a commercial, portable wind turbine and contribute to the Collegiate Wind Competition.