Canada - Native Power Systems LLC turns wind into home energy

A tiny wind-powered generator soon could help Navajo families light up their homes. The device, created by Albuquerque inventor and entrepreneur Michael Baca, is designed to harness wind energy for households in remote rural areas like the Navajo Nation where it's often too costly for utilities to provide service.

"Most Navajos use small generators -- even car generators -- to power their homes because it's too expensive for utilities to connect them to the grid," Baca said. "They need a local source of energy that's practical and economical, so I created a small, private wind generator that they can install, similar to solar panels."

Baca, who formed Native Power Systems LLC with two partners to market the generator, plans to work with Ktech Corp. to perfect the device. Once finalized, Native Power aims to license the technology to the Navajo Nation for direct manufacture and distribution by the tribe.

The company would retain off-reservation marketing rights, said Luis Ortiz, a Native Power partner and patent attorney with Ortiz and Lopez PLLC. "We don't want to form a manufacturing company, we want to let others run with it," Ortiz said. "Ideally, the Navajos would be licensed to build and sell the generator in their own market and we could still sell it elsewhere."

Ortiz and Baca are partners in MDL Enterprises LLC, an Albuquerque holding company that licenses new technologies for use by third parties, or for use by their own startup businesses, such as Native Power.

Baca and Ortiz demonstrated the generator for the first time at Ktech headquarters in Albuquerque on March 28 in a meeting with Navajo officials and Ktech engineers.

"It was a meet-and-greet to get everybody in the same room to look at it," Ortiz said.

The generator is a tube-shaped device that sits on a tripod. It's just 22 inches long and 7.5 inches in diameter.