Aug. 5--MONROVIA -- A Monrovia company best known for its unmanned surveillance planes is making increasing headway with clean energy-generating wind technology.

AeroVironment Inc. announced recently that its Architectural Wind system has been installed at Boston's Logan International Airport Office Center as part of a project commissioned by the Massachusetts Port Authority.

The installation, made up of 20 five-bladed wind turbines, was installed along the edge of the building's roof.

The system is designed to take advantage of the natural acceleration in wind speed resulting from the building's aerodynamic properties.

The higher wind speed can increase the turbines' electrical power generation by more than 50 percent compared to the power generation that would result from systems placed outside the acceleration zone, AV officials said.

AV's Architectural Wind systems have been installed on buildings throughout the country, including a Kettle Foods potato chip factory in Beloit, Wis.; Laughlin Air Force Base near Del Rio, Texas; and the St. Louis County Government Service Center.

In addition to providing reliable, non-polluting, renewable energy, the wind systems also offer a visual demonstration of each customer's commitment to clean energy.

Steven Gitlin, AV's director of market strategy, said the company is moving forward in a cautious but deliberate manner with its wind technology.

"This is still in development," he said. "It's gotten closer to commercial (readiness) but it's not there yet. We want to make sure that everything works as we think it will work, and we want our customers to share that perception."

Gitlin referred to Kettle Foods and AV's other wind customers as "early adopters" of the technology.

"We've heard of a few other companies that are working on installing some kind of wind turbines but they are not like ours," he said. "We feel we have a pretty strong intellectual property position on the patents around this system."

Wind energy is playing an increasingly big role in California's electricity portfolio.

Last year, turbines in wind farms generated 6,802 gigawatt-hours of electricity -- about 2.3 percent of the state's gross system power. Hundreds of homes and farms throughout California also are using smaller wind turbines to produce electricity, according to the California Energy Commission.

Nearly 17 percent of Southern California Edison's energy mix comes from wind, solar, biomass, small hydropower and geothermal sources.

The utility is currently developing the first three segments of its Tehachapi Renewables Transmission Project. Those segments will include about 80 miles of new 500-kilovolt transmission lines.

When completed, the lines will deliver about 700 megawatts of new wind energy, according to Project Manager Don Johnson.

"Wind energy has always been a high priority for us, and ever more so since the state mandated that 20 percent of our energy must by provided by renewable sources by 2010," he said.

To learn more about AeroVironment's Architectural Wind technology, go online to www.avinc.com.

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Story Source: San Gabriel Valley Tribune