[B]arre Town-based wind turbine corporation Northern Power Systems has sold its utility-scale operations to a Brazilian firm called WEG.
All assets having to do with utility-scale wind projects — including technology, patents and the team of engineers most instrumental in developing this part of the company — will transfer to WEG. The engineering jobs will remain in Vermont, said NPS representatives.
Although Northern Power has been expanding into utility-scale turbines, the company is best known for smaller machines that put out 60 and 100 kilowatts.
“The economics of this transaction for NPS provide both near-term cash acceleration as well as an ongoing robust income stream, giving us further confidence in our balance sheet,” NPS’ president and chief operating officer, Ciel Caldwell, said Monday in a statement.
Company representatives did not return calls for comment Monday.
Accounting errors forced Northern Power to resubmit financial reports from 2015 this summer, a move that slowed trading and the filing of quarterly reports, according to company records.
Second-quarter revenues had slowed significantly from the previous year’s, with the company pulling in $8.7 million in the three months ending June 30, compared with $13 million during the same period in 2015.
The company suffered a net loss of $2.5 million in the second quarter of 2016 and a $2.7 million loss in the second quarter of 2015.
Caldwell told investors this summer that second-quarter results actually represented an improvement over the first quarter, when revenues totaled $5.2 million.
The year-over-year quarterly revenue decline resulted in part from a changed regulatory environment in the United Kingdom, Caldwell told investors this summer. Diminished revenue from the company’s utility-scale turbine technology also contributed to the drop in revenue, she said.
Northern Power Systems in August eliminated the CEO position, which was held at the time by Troy Patton, but retained Patton as a member of the company’s board of directors. The company at that time elevated Caldwell, formerly a senior vice president of operations and finance, to her current position.
Northern Power Systems announced in August that it was making “progress toward concluding the monetization” of its utility wind technology, a process begun in May. That effort, Patton said soon after, would involve “streamlining our leadership team and reducing overall operating costs.”
Northern Power Systems announced in June that it is developing a 3.3-megawatt wind turbine with WEG — a turbine that the companies say is the first to be designed specifically for the Brazilian market. Northern Power Systems has also designed and built generators rated at 1.5 megawatts and, more recently, 2.3 megawatts.
The two companies have maintained a corporate relationship since 2013, and Northern Power Systems and WEG say they plan to continue collaborating after the sale.
Northern Power Systems began in 1974 in Warren, only to be moved out of state in 2003 after a Connecticut firm purchased it. A subsequent bankruptcy led the company back to Vermont in 2008, at which time it was re-established in Barre Town’s former Bombardier plant, according to company records.
