In Ohio, in an election year, we get a lot of attention here in Cleveland. And this important election year, we have a great piece of news for all the visitors.
Clean energy creates jobs and our company is proof. We're hitting retail shelves at REI stores nationally this holiday season with a Made in America product to charge your phone from your own kinetic energy. Jump past the orange Cinnabon to see how Americans can invest in the jobs of the future this holiday season.
Here in Cleveland we make the nPower® PEG, the world's first passive kinetic energy charger for handheld electronics. Placed upright in your bag, the PEG harvests your kinetic energy as you move, storing it in a battery for when you need it most - off the grid. The more energy you generate, the faster the PEG's battery fills up. Here's a video of how it works.
The day after Bill Clinton and Bruce Springsteen were in town, the Cleveland Plain Dealer profiled Tremont Electric this week on the front page of the business section.
The slender, batonlike device went on sale last week at the REI chain of outdoor stores, which cater to people fond of long walks in the woods. It absorbs the kinetic energy generated by motion and streams it into a smart phone or an MP3 player, re-energizing the battery. It weighs a little less than a pound and fits easily into a backpack.
We introduced ourselves to the DailyKos community
this summer with our Indiegogo project to raise money to send mobile power to crisis areas all over the world. We raised enough to send 26 PEGs to crisis areas in Syria & Uganda. Thank you!
You may wonder if we got any government help along the way. After all, we generate electricity from no fuel generating no emissions! Surely someone should have noticed! Well, we got just one little county loan a few years ago, but it was critical.
A $55,000 infusion from the North Coast Opportunities Technology Fund helped the company when it needed it most -- during the so-called "Valley of Death" -- after exhausting personal resources but before investors take interest. It was the inaugural loan from Cuyahoga County's new innovation fund.
Clean energy from no fuel with no emissions does tend to get people thinking. Now that we're hitting retail with a consumer device, we're beginning to look ahead, and people are noticing.
LeMieux is more excited about what his invention portends.
"This is totally a platform technology that can go into just about anything that moves," he said.
He's working with a defense contractor to build PEG technology into infantry body armor, hoping the U.S. Army would like to power longer marches and missions.
In June, representatives from the British military visited Tremont Electric with Sandra Morgan, the honorary British consul in Cleveland. The group included an admiral from the Royal Navy, which is interested in wave power.
A device like the PEG, connected to a bobbing buoy, could conceivably generate continuous electricity.
Tremont Electric has partnered with researchers at the University of Akron and Ohio State University, who are looking at the potential of connecting wave farms and wind farms on the Great Lakes.
It's been a LOOONG road for us, but we're turning a corner, just like our country. We all have faced enormous challenges in the last 4 years, but the light is at the end of the tunnel. You hear that a lot these days, but to us, at Tremont Electric, after many struggles, a better day is a very tangible reality and we intend to get there by moving FORWARD not back.
As this election enters the home stretch, and everyone starts heading to Ohio, focusing on Ohio, obsessing about Ohio, Ohio Ohio OHIO!!!!!! .....well, we're here, in Cleveland, and we want the world to know that we generate clean energy jobs right now, today, and we'll create even more if someone on your holiday list needs clean power off the grid.