The cleantech incubator in North America Greentown Labs and Vineyard Wind, developer of the first utility-scale offshore wind energy generation facility in the Northeast U.S., have entered a partnership to run a Greentown Launch accelerator program focused on offshore wind innovations.
The engagement will focus on innovative data monitoring technologies focused on protecting marine mammals.
"The Greentown Labs and Vineyard Wind Launch program will identify and deploy innovations that enhance offshore monitoring technologies focused on protecting marine mammals," said a joint press release.
To do so, the organizations will collaborate on a 10-month Greentown Launch program, Greentown Labs' flagship accelerator program designed to advance new venture creation and corporate partnerships with the industry's most promising cleantech entrepreneurs.
Together, Greentown Labs and Vineyard Wind will support early-stage startups developing technologies to improve the offshore wind energy and marine life value chains by providing the resources, training, and expert mentorship they need to advance their innovations.
The Launch program will aim to forge strategic relationships between selected entrepreneurs, Vineyard Wind, and Vineyard Wind's partners. Greentown Labs and Vineyard Wind will announce a detailed "Request for Proposals" in the near future.
"Vineyard Wind is excited to partner with Greentown Labs on this initiative to support and drive innovation to the emerging American offshore wind industry," said Lars Pedersen, CEO of Vineyard Wind.
Lars added: "Our company and dozens of others are poised to invest billions of dollars in construction and technology on projects that will only be improved by new marine data monitoring technologies. We look forward to working with Greentown to engage talented cleantech entrepreneurs and startups to develop technologies that will make offshore wind projects safer and more efficient."
Over the past five years, Greentown Labs has successfully conducted Greentown Launch programs across a variety of clean energy areas including solar, hydrogen, digital energy, the circular economy and more. Each program features unique partners and topic areas, a customized application and acceptance process, and three intensive two-day workshops to facilitate connections among the startups and supporting partners.
"Since our first Launch program in 2015, we've been fortunate to work with passionate, climate-oriented strategic partners that are eager to help bring new technology solutions to market," said Emily Reichert, CEO of Greentown Labs.
Emily added: "We're thrilled to add Vineyard Wind to our network of Launch partners and we know offshore wind presents a tremendous opportunity to bring more clean energy to homes and businesses across the Northeast region and beyond. We're confident that by working closely with Vineyard Wind we'll be able to help deploy solutions to advance the industry and protect the environment."
Vineyard Wind is a company in which Iberdrola has a 50% stake, through Avangrid Renewables, an Avangrid subsidiary, and by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP).