Greentown Labs. Get dirty, bend metal, and make noise.

Greentown Labs is a low-cost, clean-energy prototyping space for early stage cleantech entrepreneurs to "get dirty, bend metal, and make noise".

The 14,000 ft2 - space is located in Boston's newly titled Innovation District and currently houses 10 start-up companies.

I've actually written about 3 of them!  And they are...

• SolSolution - solar power and education funding for schools
• Promethean Power - solar refrigeration for the Indian dairy industry
• Altaeros Energies - low-cost airborne wind turbine technology

The concept of shared working space is not new, especially for web start-ups.  But when you're talking green ventures, you're talking about a whole new set of criteria for the required work space -- in addition to ya know, a bunch of computers, a wall-size whiteboard, and a Wii console.

For instance, Altaeros needed 40-ft high ceilings to test their airborne turbines, another company required access to a south-facing area for solar panels, and a third needed high-capacity electrical service.

Despite these cumbersome specifications, Greentown Labs recognizes the value of shared working space, and it's more than just economics - as Jason Hanna, the managing director of Greentown Labs and founder of Coincident (one of the 10 startups), puts it, the proximity provides

"that universal collaboration that just happens when you put entrepreneurs together".