Today, few turbines have hub-heights above 80m or 100m because of constraints associated with delivering the towers to the install site. Taller towers would ideally have diameters that exceed 4.3m, but this would make them too large to fit under overpasses and power lines. Keystone Tower Systems has developed an on-site manufacturing process that allows towers to be fabricated at the wind farm, enabling the cost effective production of much taller towers. By enabling 3MW turbines to reach 140m hub-heights, Keystone can unlock 3TW of developable land in the US, enabling the wind industry to expand beyond the plains states, into the more expensive energy markets closer to the load centers.

Eric Smith is the founder and CEO of Keystone Tower Systems, a startup developing an advanced manufacturing process for towers for wind turbines. Eric holds graduate degrees in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prior to founding Keystone, Eric ran a machine design consulting company that primarily focused on developing and evaluating new wind energy technologies, everything ranging from alternative drivetrains to advanced controls to new manufacturing techniques. Eric has also taught wind turbine engineering in the Mechanical Engineering Department at MIT. Eric’s family has a long history in the wind industry - his grandfather’s company developed the Smith-Putnam turbine, the first megawatt scale grid-tied turbine. It held the record for tallest turbine in the world from 1941 until 1979 –a record Eric plans to reclaim.