Hrm, this is super interesting. Apparently there is a company called 3TIER that has a bunch of products to help people who are considering renewable energy products figure out the feasability. (The feasability studies at the beginning of any renewable project is apparently one of the more time and money consuming parts of the project. Part of the reason why EOS exists.)
Here’s how they describe one of their products, Firstlook (pictured above), on their site: “FirstLook Prospecting for wind is the first and only online tool that allows you to evaluate a potential site quickly and for a fraction of the cost of traditional methods.” You can even play around with it a bit here.
No idea if it actually works, but clearly there will be lots more entrepreneurs playing in this space in the future. I wonder whether we can’t find some good way for GE to support/promote folks like this. Seems to me like the more smooth and easy it is for people to get their renewable projects off the ground, the better it is for all of us (even if GE doesn’t normally sell single turbines).
Oh, and here’s the Forbes video interview with the CEO of 3TIER:
FirstLook is a nice tool, but there is no way for 3TIER to make money with it. Use it while you can. 3TIER laid off 19 more people today.