Northern Power Systems is an electrical engineering

Electrical engineering

Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical...

 company that designs and manufactures small-scale wind turbines. The company was founded in 1974, and has since grown into a multinational corporation headquartered in Barre, Vermont, with operations on three different continents.

History

Northern Power Systems was founded in 1974 in Warren, Vermont

Warren, Vermont

Warren is a town in Washington County, Vermont, United States. The population was 1,681 at the 2000 census. The center of population of Vermont is located in Warren. It is set between the two ranges of the Green Mountains, with approximately 25% of the town under Green Mountain National Forest...

, under the name of North Wind Power Company.

Products

Northern Power Systems currently produces wind turbines in two sizes, one for small, community-scale applications and one for commercial use. The smaller turbine is called the Northern Power 100, which is rated as having a 100 kilowatt capacity. The larger model is a 2.3 megawatt turbine designed for industrial applications such as wind farms, called the Northern Power 2.3. Both use a relatively unusual direct-drive permanent magnet system instead of a more conventional gearbox in the nacelle

Nacelle

The nacelle is a cover housing that holds engines, fuel, or equipment on an aircraft. In some cases—for instance in the typical "Farman" type "pusher" aircraft, or the World War II-era P-38 Lightning—an aircraft's cockpit may also be housed in a nacelle, which essentially fills the...

, which the company says is lighter, more efficient and less maintenance-intensive.