Wind Solutions Limited

By Mike Hathaway, President, Wind Solutions Limited

My visions going back to my childhood remembered my Grandfather charging the neighbors batteries and pumping water for the animals on his farm with a windmill. I remember being so amazed that the wind could do so many great things for not only my Grandfather but the people around him as well for free. Grandpa's words that I remember so clearly to this day,  " wind energy will power the world one day ". So being very curious about wind I started researching into the wind industry to find out if there was an opportunity for me with my Grandfather's words in the back of my mind.

In 2004 we announced the grand opening of Wind Solutions Limited with my Grandfather at my side. Grandpa asked me if we could run the new business with good old fashion honest pride. By giving customers honest answers and good customer service and you will never look back. Wind Solutions Limited started out as a supplier of German engineered / designed small residential wind turbines in Ontario, Canada we started out with a few sales and some installs for our wind turbines. My Grandfather was amazed a small turbine could really power an average size home and still send power back to the grid. With the demand for our product and good customer service that was our policy we found ourselves growing quickly as customers wanted larger wind turbines to meet there needs.

The idea of customers wanting larger wind turbines and requesting Wind Solutions Limited to do there installs and service of large wind turbines gave us lots of excitement to our staff of only 5 people at the time. We started into a whole new market against some big names in the wind industry like GE, Siemens Suzlon, and many others. In 2006 we set our sites on a much larger scale by offering a 250kw, and 750kw wind turbine for many new customers from schools to communities and beyond.

By the end of 2007 we found the market was taking us to new customers across Canada and now the USA as we had grown to 50 staff members by this time. 2008 seen another growth with the offering of a 1.5MW wind turbine which we started to promote large wind farms in North America. We also found our market grow into Thailand, Whales, Australia, Italy, and now Africa with many inquiries each day.

The end of 2008 found ourselves developing into a new line of products which included PV modules. Wind Solutions found many new opportunities in the solar industry including residential & commercial on a global scale. Now with a good product base including wind and solar we decided to bring on distributors / dealers to help support our customer base and to help continue promoting our products. By early 2009 we offered wind turbines from 300w to 2.5MW and our PV solar modules from 10w to 300w. In one year we signed 25 new dealerships and added 20 new sales staff world wide.

Sadly in July of 2009 we lost my 88 year old Grandfather who was our wise leader into a new age of energy for the modern world we live in. My Grandfather's last few words to me was that I was amazing young man and to never give up at what I had accomplished because the wind is endless.

By the end of 2009 into early 2010 seen our latest expansion by partnering with a proven renewable energy group named Tiltran Services Inc. from Ontario, Canada. By partnering with this great company we are now able to reach new heights across the globe. By partnering with Tiltran brought 8 fulltime engineers, 30 sales staff, 100 high voltage staff, 5 project managers, and now we can build and design some of the largest wind & solar farms in the world.

We also learned that while doing some of our large wind and solar projects that it was a great idea to hire local people to help us build any of our projects across the globe. This allows for some good wages for local people who maybe never had opportunities like this before. We have even hired on fulltime local people to help service and watch over the wind or solar farm projects.

Today Wind Solutions Limited is committed to customer excellence, honest pride, and dedication to all of our customers from day one. In closing we would be happy to open our doors for you to discover what Wind Solutions Limited can do to help you power your needs into the future.

This article was first published in Next Generation Power & Energy Africa magazine: www.ngpowerenergyafrica.com/article/Wind-Solutions-Limited.