ElectraTherm completes move to Reno

ElectraTherm Inc. has completed its move into a 53,000-square-foot office and manufacturing facility in Reno and is preparing to ramp up its production and staffing.

The company, which developed technology to produce electricity from low-grade heat sources, expect to add about six people to its staff of 34 within the next couple of months.

And by the end of the year, ElectraTherm's employment may reach 40, says Steve Olson, president and chief financial officer.

The company's new quarters at 4750 Turbo Circle on the east boundary of the Reno-Tahoe International Airport allowed it to consolidate operations that had been spread across five locations in Carson City and Mound House.

Working with 40,000 square feet of manufacturing space in the new location, ElectraTherm potentially could produce one of its Green Machine units daily, Olson says.

"We've got the demand to crank them out," he says. Many of the inquiries fielded by the company come from European customers who are pushed by regulators to find environmentally sound systems to generate power.

ElectraTherm's Green Machine captures waste heat from industrial processes or other applications and uses the it to boil an organic chemical working fluid. The vapor from the boiling fluid drives a generator before it's cooled and returned to the cycle.

The company has said it can drive its generator with water no hotter than a cup of tea.

The system uses entirely off-the-shelf components, and ElectraTherm Production Manager Frank Phillips says the company is looking to increase its use of local suppliers who can meet a just-in-time inventory system.

The company completed a $5.4 million round of financing in November and has raised nearly $10 million since its inception in 2005.

Among the investors in the company are Greener Capital Partners, a venture fund in San Francisco, and a private family office in Michigan.

ElectraTherm completed a field test of its system at Southern Methodist University at Dallas last year.