The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency is lending Aurea Technologies just under $392,000 as the Dartmouth maker of portable wind turbines looks to automate more of its production process.

Some of the money will go towards buying specialized automation equipment for quality control, packaging and prototyping, building on progress the company has already made automating the assembly of the main turbine casings. The funding will also be used to ramp up its digital marketing and sales efforts.

“We’ve done a pretty good job of reducing the time to build new cells (turbine bodies),” said CEO Cat Adalay in an interview. “What we’re looking to do now with the funds is automate other aspects of the turbine, such as the sub-assembly, which is not necessarily part of the main housing.

“With the funds from ACOA, we’re able to buy new capital assets to reduce the amount of labour needed to assemble those pieces. We’re looking to increase our production efficiency from two units every hour to better than that, roughly three units every hour, I’d project.”

Aurea co-founders Adalay and Rachel Carr launched the Shine turbine on Kickstarter in 2021. The device is small and light enough for easy transport, at about three pounds. It is capable of functioning in a wide range of weather conditions, anywhere from 0 to 40 degrees Celsius and with wind speeds of between 8 and 28 miles per hour, and includes a 12,000 mAh internal battery, which can be charged ahead of time.

One reason Adalay is keen to increase Aurea’s production capacity is that several North American retail deals are in the works. So far, the company sells its turbines mostly in Canada and the U.S., though prospective European customers can also pre-order their turbines, with shipments to start once the Shine receives its compliance certifications from European and U.K. regulators.

One crucial certification the Shine already holds, which contributed to the hurdles Adaly’s team overcame to automate much of the casing production, is an IP54 water resistance rating.

“We were able to design the production process in such a way that the main cell that houses the electronics is able to withstand the ingress of water and dust, and through the automation technology that we’ve developed in-house, we’ve been able to do that consistently and efficiently with our production units,” said Adalay.

Aurea, which earlier this month became one of 10 companies on social impact investor and industry group Coralus’s Canadian list of 10 Selected Ventures to watch, employs 10 people, either directly or as contractors, and Adalay said she expects that figure to grow this year.

“(The new funding) will also help us expand into new markets and continue to develop innovative renewable energy solutions that make it easy for people to harness the power of wind,” said Adalay.

Full disclosure: Cat Adalay, the CEO of Aurea Technologies, is the daughter of the owners of Entrevestor.