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THE OPENING of a wind turbine at a Cardiff renewables factory was yesterday hailed as the realisation of a “green from green dream”.

Robert Hertzberg founder of G24 Innovations (G24i) in Cardiff said: “Our vision was to create a truly green company and we started with the idea of expressing what it meant to be green.

“That meant asking how do you become the new, new thing. Here in Cardiff that is exactly what we are doing.

“It’s a grand vision which we share with the Welsh and UK governments and it has all the elements of a truly sustainable businesses environment.”

The 120m tall 2.3 megawatt wind turbine was officially launched by Oliver Letwin MP, Minister of State at the Cabinet Office.

It produces enough electricity to power the entire 23 acre site and will save more than 2,500 tonnes of CO2 a year.

American Mr Hertzberg said: “This wind turbine powers the factory to make solar cells making it the first in the world to make renewable energy from renewable energy.”

He added: “Today, using the excess power of the wind turbine we are using wind to power vehicles and create a learning centre where children can learn about sustainability.”

The whole undertaking, Mr Hertzberg explained, hadn’t been easy.

“This has been challenging but the fact is we have got this site up and running with the assistance of the Welsh Government, who have been with us since the outset, especially during the planning phase,” he said.

“So they have shared our big vision of being a truly sustainable business.”

The recent downturn in the economy had, he said, brought a tough couple of years from the end of 2008-09, and its impact on the renewable energy business had made operating in this sector difficult.

“We are starting a brand new technology that has never been commercialised. So we have had to reinvent our machines several times,” he explained.

He added: “The good news is we have very ingenious engineers here who have built all our machines on site and there is nobody else in the world who can do this.

“We have people here who are drawing the drawings for our own machine shop where they are built.”

G24i was, Mr Hertzberg said, on the cusp of a significant breakthrough.

It has, he said, been hard to educate the world when dealing with a new kind of solar technology.

“But there has been a great deal of evolution in the business and we feel good now,” he said.

“When we first launched the business we felt the place to start with a new lightweight solar cell was to go to Africa where people didn’t have access to the grid.

“We found this more difficult than we had anticipated since people and governments didn’t have a great deal of money. Governments and other companies, mainly from China, were selling inexpensive solar chargers that didn’t work very well and presented us with competition that was difficult to match.”

Now the focus of the company has shifted to more indoor solar energy appliances like smoke detectors, key boards and phone chargers which people can apply to everyday use.

Mr Hertzberg said that initially funding had come from himself and his business partner. Now money had been raised through Morgan Stanley Principal Investments (MSPI), investors from Israel and the Netherlands and some subscription agreement for additional funding.

“The Welsh Government has been helpful,” he said. “Initially we made no funding requests but now they have given us employment and other grants.”

He added: “It has all taken time but visitors can come here and see we have people who understand the technology and what we are trying to do. They’ve cracked the code and although we have fewer employees than in 2008 every single person is a critical element to the operation.”