American Superconductor Corporation was founded on April 9, 1987. We are a
leading provider of megawatt-scale solutions that lower the cost of wind power
and enhance the performance of the power grid. In the wind power market, we
enable manufacturers to field highly competitive wind turbines through our advanced
power electronics products, engineering, and support services. In the power
grid market, we enable electric utilities, industrial facilities, and renewable
energy project developers to connect, transmit and distribute power through
our transmission planning services and power electronics, and superconductor-based
products. Our wind and power grid products and services provide exceptional
reliability, security, efficiency, and affordability to our customers.
Our wind and power grid solutions help to improve energy efficiency, alleviate
power grid capacity constraints and increase the adoption of renewable energy
generation. Demand for our solutions is driven by the growing needs for renewable
sources of electricity, such as wind and solar energy, and for modernized smart
grids that improve power reliability, security, and quality. Concerns about
these factors have led to increased spending by corporations as well as supportive
government regulations and initiatives on local, state and national levels,
including renewable portfolio standards, tax incentives, and international treaties.
We estimate that today’s total annual addressable global market for our
wind and grid solutions exceeds $6 billion.
We segment our operations into two market-facing business units: Wind and Grid.
We believe this market-centric structure enables us to more effectively anticipate
and meet the needs of wind turbine manufacturers, power generation project developers
and electric utilities.
Wind. Through our Windtec Solutions™, our Wind business segment enables
manufacturers to field wind turbines with exceptional power output, reliability,
and affordability. We supply advanced power electronics and control systems,
license our highly engineered wind turbine designs, and provide extensive customer
support services to wind turbine manufacturers. Our design portfolio includes
a broad range of drive trains and power ratings of 2 megawatts (“MW”)
and higher. We provide a broad range of power electronics and software-based
control systems that are highly integrated and designed for optimized performance,
efficiency, and grid compatibility.
Grid. Through our Gridtec Solutions™, our Grid business segment enables
electric utilities and renewable energy project developers to connect, transmit
and distribute power with exceptional efficiency, reliability, security and
affordability. We provide transmission planning services that allow us to identify
power grid congestion, poor power quality, and other risks, which help us determine
how our solutions can improve network performance. These services often lead
to sales of our grid interconnection solutions for wind farms and solar power
plants, power quality systems and transmission and distribution cable systems.
We also sell ship protection products to the U.S. Navy.
Building on these competitive strengths, we plan to focus on driving revenue
growth and enhancing our operating results through the objectives defined below.
Provide Solutions from Power Generation to Delivery. From the generation source
to the distribution system, we focus on providing best-in-class engineering,
support services, technologies and solutions that make the world’s power
supplies smarter, cleaner and stronger.
Focus on “Megawatt-Scale” Power Offerings. Our research, product
development, and sales efforts focus on megawatt-scale offerings ranging from
designs of power electronics for large wind turbine platforms to systems that
stabilize power flows, integrate renewable power into the grid and carry power
to and from transmission and distribution substations.
Pursue Emerging Overseas Markets and Serve Key Markets Locally. We focus our
sales efforts on overseas markets that are investing aggressively in renewable
energy and power grid projects, and we have been particularly successful in
targeting key Asian markets, including India and China. As part of our strategy,
we serve our key target markets with local sales and field service personnel,
which enables us to understand market dynamics and more effectively anticipate
customer needs while also reducing response time. We currently serve target
markets such as Australia, China, India, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and
the United States.
Product Innovation. We have a strong record of developing unique solutions for
megawatt-scale power applications and will continue our focus on investing in
innovation. Recently, our product development efforts have included our Resilient
Electric Grid (“REG”) system for the electricity grid and ship protection
systems for the U.S. Navy.