TURTLEnergy is the newest business unit within Turtle & Hughes, founded two years ago to service the unlimited market for renewable energy options.

"If you look at the geopolitical landscape, it's obvious that more and more institutions and businesses are going to begin generating their own electricity at the point of use," says John Millard, the founder of the new division. "Given threats like radical climate change, outmoded power grids, and the vulnerability to terrorism, the trend is going to be toward self-generation of power and away from total dependence on the utility companies."

The renewable energy market is in its formative stages, with various competitive and sometimes complementary technologies vying for customer attention. These include photovoltaics (PV-solar electricity), wind turbines and hydrogen fuel cells. This is where TURTLEnergy plans to provide a unique service.

"The potential customer, whether an industrial, commercial, institutional or municipal entity, needs advice and guidance in this new venture," Millard says. "Turtle & Hughes is in a unique position to coordinate the capabilities and strategies of both renewable energy manufacturing companies and the electrical contractors who will perform the installation of the system at the end-user's site. Since our company has a customer base of some 3,000 contractors, we can facilitate the optimum matches of end-user and installer."

The specialist staff of the new division consists of Millard, with a background in architectural design; Richard Lenskold, an electrical engineer with 30 years experience in the PV industry; and Steven Hoffman who is ana experienced manager of PV projects and who provides renewable energy system sales and installation support.

The game plan is for TURTLEnergy to act as a systems integrator, drawing upon the entire company's on-the-ground knowledge of their existing industrial and institutional customer's needs in terms of electrical power. This information can then be shared with appropriate contractor customers who can bid to install the integrated systems hardware. The objective is to coalesce the selling of products and the selling of systems.

One of the most. dynamic aspects of this market is its universality, encompassing everything from residential to multi-location industrial installations. Depending on the application, systems can range anywhere in size from the dimensions of a trash can to the size of a commercial aircraft.

"This whole market is in its nascent stage," Millard notes.

"And the numbers are staggering. At the end of last year, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities allocated $780 million for renewable energy related projects over the next four years. That's probably only 60% of the state's incentive money, so we're talking about $1.4 billion going to be spent in New Jersey alone by 2008."

And TURTLEnergy has begun to establish a track record. The division has been involved in the installation of a 50-kilowatt system and has been awarded a 500-kilowatt project at the Kearny Board of Education. One of the company's contractor customers is working on a $2.5 million project as well.