Nortech sees $30 billion potential market for Northeast Ohio advanced energy companies

Imagine a manufacturing renaissance in Northeast Ohio, one that creates jobs by the thousands in industries making things that were not even invented when the region was wealthy with heavy industry.

Imagine a manufacturing renaissance in Northeast Ohio, one that creates jobs by the thousands in industries making things that were not even invented when the region was wealthy with heavy industry.

It's a dream that policy-makers and entrepreneurs have floated for decades, with varying results. Now it just might happen.

Efforts to build advanced energy and high-tech manufacturing in Northeast Ohio are about to accelerate at an unprecedented pace.

NorTech, a regional nonprofit, economic development group, has been working for months with more than 30 companies, NASA Glenn Research Center, Case Western Reserve University and the University of Akron to create a game plan - a roadmap to growth based on the region's existing strengths.

The idea is deceptively simple: First figure out what companies are already here and whether there are enough of them to create a competitive concentration, or "cluster."

Then get them talking while you do an analysis that includes a look at whether there is a market for their products and whether the "cluster" has the potential firepower to beat the competition, whether it is located in another state or around the world.

The bottom line of the study is jobs -- more than 5,000 new jobs for the region in the next seven years, says Dave Karpinski of NorTech, one architect of the plan, which will get its first public viewing Tuesday at Lorain County Community College.

The explosion in manufacturing and jobs would be in just three industries where technological advances are on the verge of changing the landscape and in which NorTech estimates the potential market will be nearly $30 billion.

Here's a look at the three broad areas where NorTech thinks the region's 28 companies already working in these high-tech industrial sectors can beat the competition, whether it's in a nearby state or around the world.

•Energy storage. New batteries, from advanced lead acid to lithium-ion to "flow batteries" that use fuel cell chemistry, are moving from the laboratories to the production lines. And new systems of harnessing battery technology to help electric utilities store power to smooth out the erratic generation from wind and solar are imminent.

NorTech found that nearly a dozen local companies are already involved in manufacturing these energy storage devices or crucial parts of them.

•Biomass and waste to energy. Local companies are already turning food waste and manure into methane to generate electricity with "digesters" and turning plastic wastes into gasoline, other fuels and polymer feedstock.

•Smart Grid. A half dozen companies are involved in making energy conservation and management systems for use by electric utilities and homeowners.

Some devices would allow consumers to shut down home systems with a smart phone when power prices peak. Others would allow utilities to control appliances such as home air conditioners during times of peak demand. Some industrial and commercial operations already deploy sophisticated power management systems.

Determining what emerging industries should be the focus of development took months -- with plenty of input from the companies themselves, who broke into working groups and met frequently.

"What this methodology gets you to is reality based," Karpinski said. "It's based on reasonable growth and upon asking what are chances of successfully competing."

Private industry does this kind of analysis all the time, Karpinski added. But using this method to figure out a development strategy for an entire region hasn't been done before, he said.

Interviews with representatives of companies involved in the months of meetings organized by NorTech turned up rampant enthusiasm.

"What has been amazing is the number of industry players locally. It's just been mind blowing," said Norma Byron, president of Ashlawn Energy, a Virginia company that plans to build flow batteries here, starting with one being built for Painesville's power plant.

"I think none of us realized all of us existed until NorTech collected up everybody for this road mapping process," Byron said. "It has created a sense of strength and pride."

Caroline Henry, marketing manager at Quasar Energy Group, a Cleveland company that engineers, manufactures and operates biomass digesters, summed up the experience this way:

"NorTech's road mapping sessions have reminded me and everyone involved about something we forgot -- that Ohio is a region rich in human capital. It's an exciting time. Innovation is everywhere. I left every one of those meetings thinking, 'Wow!' "

The process also has attracted the attention of the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., which is about to profile the effort in an upcoming study.

"We came across their technological road mapping exercise, which shrikes us as an important way for regions to more thoughtfully steer their development and direct it," said Mark Muro, a senior fellow at Brookings. "Regions need to collect and analyze top quality data to be able to set strategy."

And it has gained the admiration of a federal lab in Richland, Wash., which is looking forward to working with some of the Northeast Ohio companies.

The U.S. Economic Development Administration, which awarded NorTech a $300,000 grant for the effort a year ago, will review the results and is more willing to fund development here based on a regional cluster approach.

The meeting Tuesday at Lorain County Community College and subsequent meetings over the summer are part of NorTech's effort to refine the plan, Karpinski said.

He said the NorTech team will look for response from the people at Tuesday night's meeting, where the audience will be given remote electronic devices allowing them to "vote" their impressions of each aspect of the plan -- a system much like political analysts use to figure audience response to a candidate debate.

The final plan won't be ready until the end of the summer or early fall.

Karpinski and Rebecca Bagley, president and chief executive of NorTech, stressed in separate interviews that the plan is not NorTech's but one that the participating companies ultimately have designed.