Aurea Technologies’ mission is to provide clean energy independence. We proudly develop and manufacture portable renewable energy products in Nova Scotia, Canada. Our systems allow people to create their own power free from the electrical grid.
Our first consumer product is the Shine Turbine, an ultra-compact and portable wind turbine that generates power from the wind to charge handheld electronics. Shine was born from the belief that we need to rethink how we produce and use energy and that we need to move away from fossil fuels.
In addition to Shine, we have plans to develop other larger and more powerful renewable energy solutions in the future.
At Aurea, we value the outdoors, the environment, and sustainability. We believe everyone should have access to power and that the power we use should be sustainable and renewable.
Tell us about yourself?
I’m an entrepreneur who’s always had an interest in renewable energy and cleantech. I’m passionate about innovation, technology, and the outdoors. I’ve always felt that a lot of where our power comes from is not sustainable, and I wanted to do something about it.
Solar is often the first thing that comes to mind when people think of renewable energy. However, being a sailor and living on the east coast of Canada (where there’s never a shortage of wind!), I realized there was untapped potential for wind power to be harnessed on a smaller scale.
This sparked my interest in designing wind energy systems and creating a company that develops portable renewable energy systems that empower people to generate their own energy from the wind.
If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
Follow your gut. Every time I haven’t followed my gut, I have regretted it. It’s important to recognize that a person cannot always be right and that it is important to collaborate and consider the opinions of a team. However, whenever I have given way to another opinion when I strongly believed that there was a better course of action, it has almost always proven to be a difficult situation to recover from.
What problem does your business solve?
Blackouts have increased by 64 per cent since the early 2000s, and many of these have been caused by extreme weather events, including wildfires, tornadoes, and hurricanes. We’re living during a time when our aging energy grid infrastructure (much of which runs on fossil fuels) is unreliable and ill-equipped for the growing climate crisis.
Aurea is helping address this by putting power back into the hands of people. The Shine Turbine, the first of a series of portable renewable energy solutions we’ve designed, allows people to generate their own sustainable power free from the electrical grid. It’s an ideal solution for charging handheld electronics during power outages or while car camping, multi-day hiking, RVing, living off-grid, cottaging, and more. The applications are almost endless!
What is the inspiration behind your business?
When I founded Aurea Technologies in 2017, I was prototyping a wind energy system for residential applications. When Rachel Carr, Co-Founder, joined the company in 2018, we saw an opportunity to scale down the prototype I’d been working on to create the Shine Turbine, a 40-watt, 3 lb portable wind turbine for charging handheld electronics. Developing large energy systems for residential structures is a very capital-intensive undertaking. As a result, we chose to enter the market with Shine to provide the stepping stone for Aurea’s future. Shine has helped create the foundation needed for us to continue developing and releasing future renewable energy solutions for various applications.
What is your magic sauce?
Shine’s major differentiator is its ability to rapidly generate and store power while being extremely compact and lightweight. We call this Shine’s power-to-weight ratio, which trumps any other comparable handheld portable renewable charger on the market today. Much of this has to do with our patent-pending technology and the magic of the wind. The wind is exceptionally efficient when it comes to creating energy quickly! Unlike solar or hydro, which has a linear relationship with power, wind power has a cubic relationship. This means that as wind speeds double, power output increases eight times. This, paired with Shine’s unique technology – high-efficiency blades and lightweight design – allow it to produce the most amount of energy for the least amount of weight people need to carry
Shine’s patent-pending blade and nacelle design also makes our wind charger unique. It increases power output while enabling the blades to fold onto the turbine’s body for portability.
What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?
Our vision is to be the leading provider of wind energy systems and to have our products available around the world. To achieve this, we will be continuing to scale our in-house manufacturing so that we can expand into retail stores and new markets. We also plan to scale the technology we’ve developed for the Shine Turbine to develop larger wind energy systems that can power larger devices, including power stations, car batteries, and, eventually, one day, residential energy storage solutions!
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?
The biggest challenge we had when engineering Shine was figuring out a highly efficient blade design while enabling the blades to fold onto the turbine’s aerodynamic body. It was also tricky to figure out how to create a mounting system that was able to be stored in Shine (a small space to work with!) while still maintaining a weight of three lbs, which was something prospective customers said was a requirement.
Another big challenge we have faced was the need to educate people about the wind. A lot of folks are super familiar with solar but do not have much experience harnessing power from the wind. The reason for the lack of knowledge is simply due to the fact that there are very few portable wind systems on the market. As a result, it’s been challenging but extremely fun and rewarding to teach folks how to determine wind speed and the best locations to set up Shine to maximize power generation.
How can people get involved?
Want to generate power from the wind? Visit www.shineturbine.com to order your very own portable wind turbine for charging handheld electronics today!