TWO RIVERS – Ian Sleger his vocation blowing in the wind.
The Two Rivers location owns All Energy Management, 4711 Woodland Drive, Two Rivers. The company manufactures, installs and maintains wind turbines, which convert wind energy into electricity.
Sleger founded the company in 2016, offering turbines to farmers, businesses, and giant homes. All Energy expanded to include multiple workers and moved from downtown Two Rivers to Woodland Drive.
In recent weeks, Sleger and his team have a wind turbine in front of the corporate building. The turbine power will pay for itself in a few years, as All Energy consumes less power from the power grid, Sleger said.
Saving money is the draw for most people who opt for wind turbines, he said, as well as a form of energy cleaner than coal.
His interest in blank power began when he was a student at Two Rivers High School.
“I don’t think renewables were that important when I was growing up, but I’ve been interested in environmentalism,” Sleger said. “I also knew I wanted to do anything with my hands, not sit behind a table 40 hours a day. “week. “
After graduation, he took courses in the wind energy program at Lakeshore Technical College in Cleveland. He was hired as a technician through a giant wind company before graduating.
The new job, in Vancouver, took him across the country and the world installing turbines.
He shipped to Pennsylvania, Texas, Northern Ireland and Italy. He also spent a year running turbines in the UK.
“Being a road warrior is a very fast lifestyle,” Sleger said. travel, go around the world.
He returned to Two Rivers, and soon after, other people applied for a wind energy allowance and then another.
Eventually, it had to hire staff to keep track of projects, and All Energy Management, Inc. was born.
“There’s a developing call for wind strength there,” Sleger said. “Even in tough times with the economy, the pandemic and converting administrations (federal and state), we’ve done very well. “
There are necessarily two types of wind turbine systems: distributed, or smaller scale, which are located on or near the user’s assets and services, and larger-scale, which come with taller wind turbines to shape a wind farm and are connected. to a transmission system.
All Energy works with businesses, farmers and in the U. S. “The U. S. and European economy, he said.
It all starts with an assessment, which can be done remotely, to determine if a wind turbine makes sense for the prospective customer.
“A lot of other people say, ‘Oh, there’s definitely wind here,’ but there’s not as much wind as they think,” Sleger said. “You may have some windy days, but it has to be a steady wind. “
The quantity and speed of the wind, the maximum load of electrical energy and the authorization standards for the region are some of the elements that evaluate for customers.
While the charge for buying electricity from a public increases year after year, the charge for running your turbine remains stable.
“We’re not here to get other people off the net and green hippies,” Sleger said. “It has to make monetary sense to them before we move forward. “
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Government entities can make things more confusing for the wind energy industry, he said.
This included permitting legislation that does not exclude turbines from an area, or monetary incentives such as those included in the federal Inflation Reduction Act.
Utilities and municipalities can also create net metering buyback programs, “buying” power sets from wind turbine participants at the same price other people pay for electric power purchased from the grid. Some states, such as Minnesota, require net metering systems.
Wind energy is a small industry, with approximately 1,000 companies and business owners getting to know each other. Sleger said other people and corporations from all walks of life are buying wind turbines and he expects All Energy Management and other wind corporations to continue to grow.
“I’m very happy,” he said. It’s a fun industry, and we got a start from the start. I think it’s at its peak.
Do you have advice, questions or for Streetwise Manitowoc? Contact journalist Patti Zarling at pzarling@gannett. com or call 920-606-2506. Follow her on Twitter @PGPattiZarling.