| It was a hazy Thursday morning in the Adirondacks, when I stumbled out of bed and into the living room, where I had left my trusty laptop the night before. I opened 'er up and within moments I heard the soft whirring of whatever wonderful internal component it is that makes that soft whirring sound. Soon my sweet gmail was displayed before me.
It wasn't long before I came upon a shiny new Press Pass ... my daily email from BusinessWire that highlights all the economic development goodies that took place the day before. I tore it open (by clicking on it) and found this headline ...
Titan Energy Development, Inc. Delivers Sentry 5000 Mobile Utility System to Wayne State University as Part of Michigan 21st Century Jobs Fund
To the untrained eye, that looks like a boring headline. But I am a blogger. I see gold.
I start with the BusinessWire story itself, which is pretty much summarized in the aforementioned headline. WSU's Center for Automotive Research, the National Automotive Center, the US Army, and NextEnergy, got some bank from the 21st Century Jobs fund, in order to perform a 24-month multi-fuels study on a device called the "Sentry 5000". The Sentry is manufactured by Titan Energy Development, who is a partner in the research.
Well I like this story. Titan Energy Development is a Detroit based subsidiary of Titan Energy Worldwide. Its function is to manufacture and market the Sentry 5000, which is a mobile utility system. According to the BusinessWire article, the Sentry 5000 "supports emergency power generation, water purification, satellite voice and data communication, emergency area lighting, space conditioning (heat or cooling), and offers 50kW+ additional power capacity." The Sentry has both civilian and military applications.
Titan Energy President Thomas Black weighed in on the partnership and the funding:
"The knowledge we will obtain by being part of this program over the next 24 months will be extremely valuable and help us deliver better products suitable for a wider range of uses. Our goal for the military is to prepare a standard operating and maintenance procedure for the prime mover in the Sentry 5000 package. As for working with the State of Michigan, our goal is to create opportunities that will add jobs to replace lost automotive related jobs."
Excellent. A Michigan product that creates more Michigan jobs. And not just in the manufacture of the item, but also in the development of the alternative fuel source. Create a product like this that runs on biofuel, and you create demand for biofuel. Even more Michigan jobs.
Now for many bloggers, the post would stop there. But here at BFM we like to dig a little deeper.
Turns out the order for this Sentry unit was placed by NextEnergy back in October, and the study is actually part of a US Department of Defense program called "Advanced Mobile Microgrid Power System" (AM2GPS). The purpose of AM2GPS is to develop a system that will allow the Army and other US agencies deploy up to 1.5 MegaWatts of power to any location in the world within 48 hours.
The AM2GPS program seeks to harness power from conventional generating sources as well as wind, solar photovoltaics, vehicles with exportable power capabilities, fuel cells and other sources, for distribution across a select geographic area. In the wake of a natural disaster, homeland security incident or military operations, it enables essential human services requiring power, including distilling and purifying water culled from any source.
It's just. That. Cool.
But that's not all … this is just one Sentry 5000 that has been delivered to WSU for this testing program. On July 24, Titan Energy received a letter of intent from a Chicago company to purchase 4 of the units. The units will be used in the United States and India.
The Sentry 5000 will provide essential utilities for the dismantling of a steel plant near Chicago. Air conditioning will be used for construction offices and lunch/break rooms; water purification will be used to drive hi-pressure washers for cleaning parts and pieces before packing and shipment overseas; compressed air is available; and electrical power for a variety of uses. …
Steve Hurt, VP of Sales for Titan Energy Development, Inc. stated that, "Two of the Sentry units going to India will have spark ignited General Motors engines equipped to run on propane - further showcasing the tremendous flexibility of the Sentry 5000 platform. If everything goes well, Titan expects to receive future orders for its Sentry 5000 from this company for planned manufacturing and processing plants that are scheduled for export to China."
Oh but if you think that's exciting, wait 'til you see this …
The first order for the Sentry 5000 was placed last April by Axia, which will market and sell the system in Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan and other areas of Southeast Asia, where power, water and communications are compromised. According to Raj Janan, President of Axia Group, Inc., "Once we have the unit in operation in Sri Lanka, we hope to be able to pursue sales of the Sentry 5000 as we continue to acquire new housing contracts. … Axia will maintain an exclusive agreement with Titan for the Sentry 5000 for the region as we believe this is a very valuable and much needed utility solution for these areas."
Yes, this story has it all.
Research and development
Manufacturing
Biofuels
Homeland Security
Michigan university
Private industry
Global market
And Titan Energy isn't the only Michigan company moving forward. There's Kaydon Corporation, Interactive Frontiers, Inc., FTF LLC, Harvest Wind Farms, and BASF. Mascoma, Wizzard Media, and JHP Pharma are moving in. And that's just what we've blogged here. Companies like Google, the Global Engine Manufacturing Alliance, Hemlock Semiconductor, and United Solar Ovonic are out there too.
Yes folks, a new economy is growing in Michigan. |
