Beijing, China, 12 June 2014 –The Switch, a leading manufacturer of permanent magnet generators (PMG) and full-power converters (FPC), announced today its way of reinventing fire at a book launch event. With its advanced drive train technology and innovative business model, the Finnish company offers practical solutions and valuable experiences for a future energy paradigm that works in favor of efficiency and renewables, which is exactly the focus in the book – “Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era”. The book is written by Amory Lovins, cofounder of Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) and translated by Haiyan Qin, Secretary General of China Wind Energy Association (CWEA).
“We have challenged the wind industry, first by making PMG and FPC the preferred technology for wind turbines, and now by enabling the technology to be commercially available. The Switch successfully enables wind installations to more effectively capture wind power and transforms it to significantly higher energy production,” says David Zhao, China Country Manager of The Switch, during his speech at the book launch event.
“The way forward demands a new type of flexibility and mobility never seen before in manufacturing-based businesses. It requires a rapid transfer of technology into new growth markets. Agile positioning, the way we are running our business, could be the perfect model to accelerate deployment of solutions for inventing a new fire that makes our earth safe, secure, healthy and durable. We could rapidly transfer new technology into new growth markets with local content and could promptly respond to customer needs with our networked approach business among R&D, suppliers and customers. Based on our proven success in wind power applications, The Switch is now making permanent magnet (PM) machines and frequency converter solutions commercially available for a wide range of applications, including marine (for example, ships), heavy industry, compressors and pumps, energy storage and combined heat and power (CHP),” David continues.
Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) is an independent, non-partisan nonprofit that drives the efficient and restorative use of resources. “Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era”, RMI’s 2011 book, offers a vision, rigorous analysis, and a solutions roadmap for achieving that focus in the four energy-using sectors of our economy: transportation, buildings, industry, and electricity. In each of these sectors, RMI drives innovation in technology, policy, design, and especially business strategy and market opportunity.
In 2013, RMI embarked on a similar Reinventing Fire study for China in partnership with three other major organizations as input for China’s next five-year plan. The translation of the book by CWEA is one of the partnership projects. The launch event of the Chinese version of the book is also a parallel session of 2014 U.S. – China Clean Energy Forum, a nation level Sino-US cooperation in clean energy.