Solar for the Masses by the Masses
Introduction - What your company is and what it does.
Sunreps is the company that will change the way people view solar energy. Simple designs using current building material will allow immediate installations of “Solar ventilation air pre-heating collectors (SVP), everywhere, now.
Why SVP? Because the scientist of solar say so.
Solar ventilation air preheating has the lowest cost and highest efficiency compared to other solar technologies such as photovoltaics or solar water heating, but it is only used for one thing, which is preheating ventilation air.
Stated by – The American Society of Mechanical Engineers
Sun Ra LLC dba Sunreps, manufactures and installs two different products for the commercial building sector and one for the agricultural sector’s poultry broiler barns.
The commercial building sector uses our screening and collectors on their roofs.
1. Fabric Solar ventilation air pre-heating collectors (FSVP) aka Fabric Transpired solar collectors (FTSC)
2. Rooftop equipment screening system
The Agri-sector uses a version of the commercial building sector’s collector to pre-heat a broiler barn’s fresh air.
The pre-heated fresh air from the solar air collectors reduces an RTU’s gas consumption from 20%-25% annually, in Seattle.
Your Team - Who is on your team
John Wabel- Managing Member and founder of Sunreps
Hal Levi- lawyer
Greg Barker- A principal in “The Mountain Energy Partnership” (MEP). Greg has done all Sunreps collector fabric testing. MEP works almost exclusively with the United States Department of Energy/National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)
Jeff Hostetter- Marketing- his company Funk-shun.
Mathew Perez- Video production and web developer
Problem: our planet has too much CO2 because we are burning too much fossil fuel. Specifically, too much natural gas and propane is being used to heat our commercial buildings and poultry broiler barns.
Solution: Mitigate as much fossil fuel burning as quickly as possible on the largest scale possible. FSVP collectors represent the lowest hanging fruit for the mitigation. Solar storage on rooftops will be the next product in Sunreps future.
Sunreps SVP collectors reduce fossil fuel consumption in commercial buildings and poultry broiler barns from 20%-25% annually.
75% of the materials needed to assemble and install the collectors are currently in most American towns, now.
Business Model
License the patent rights to our rooftop equipment screening system to HVAC companies or similar in cities that require rooftop equipment screening across the country.
License the rights to a competent agri-sector sales company to represent Sunreps’ technology in the poultry sector of the US.
Train licensees how to fabric and install Sunreps screening and solar collectors in an online educational environment.
In both the commercial and agricultural sectors, Sunreps will sell and ship the collector fabric, plenum and all other parts needed to make a quality installation. The local installer will access the “commodity materials” locally. Sunreps will provide the engineering documents needed by city permitting departments.
The Inflation Reduction Law provides represents an exciting new avenue of sales for Sunreps and its licensees. The new avenue is called: the 179D in the US tax code. The 179D energy efficiency tax deduction allows significant tax deductions to building owners who reduce energy consumption in their buildings. The law has been on the books since 2005 but not until now has it provided a significant tax benefit to building owners. The new law has lowered compliance hurdles and increased incentives simultaneously. The maximum deduction has increased from $1.80 a sq ft of building to $5.00 a sq. ft.
There are three parts to the 179D tax deduction. A successful project must lower energy costs in each of the three categories of Lighting, Envelope and HVAC. Historically, lowering heating costs by 15% has been the largest roadblock to successful 179D projects. Until now there as not been an easy and inexpensive way to lower heating costs by 15% on commercial buildings. Sunreps collectors will consistently lower an RTUs energy consumption by 15%. All previously failed 179D projects now have a new path to success by adding Sunreps’ collectors to the project.
Who is in the market already?
Solarwall is the dominate player in the SVP world. John Hollick is the inventor of the first “transpired solar collector” but the solar collector is called “Solarwall”. Hollick’s inventive genius is often compared to Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. Solarwall installations are almost exclusively applied to the southern walls of buildings. Rooftops are not their target, but they are for Sunreps. That’s where the RTUs are.
Inspirewall, is Solarwall, but under another name. ATAS International, Inc. is a metal fabrication company in Allentown, PA that has made Solarwall and their own TSC, the Inspirewall. Both brand names have been made on the same presses for the past 20 years at ATAS.
How will I own the market?
Levi Strauss sold gold prospectors the “correct pants” for the job. Sunreps will sell the “correct solar collector” for the job to the HVAC sector. The HVAC currently does not have a renewable energy product for building owners, soon they will.
Sunreps currently has two markets, the “built” commercial building market of 130,000,000 buildings and the “built” poultry broiler barn market of 145,000 broiler barns. New construction is not Sunreps focus.
Sunreps has designed its collectors to be utilitarian in design. Most of the collector materials are ubiquitously available in the US, now. Sunreps has been diligent in creating its collector designs to use off-the-shelf materials whenever possible. Home Depot, Lowes, and L&W supply have all the materials needed for anyone to build the collector’s frame and supports. Sunreps, like Strauss has the correct fabric to do the job at the right time, now.
Entry into the solar ventilation air pre-heating sector will have a very low bar. The low bar matches the level of complexity it takes to successfully build and install collectors. Short online training sessions will be adequate in preparing new licensees to start making money if they already work on commercial building’s roofs.
Sunreps is basically the only player in the commercial building market that is fabricating and installing, Fabric Solar Ventilation Air Pre-Heating Collectors directly on RTUs. Solarwall has a rooftop collector called the “SolarDuct,” but it has not broken through with building owners. It is too expensive at $65-$100 a sq. ft. uninstalled.
Price, Price, and Price are the largest motivators for building owners/property management companies.
Other than efficiency, price is Sunreps focus. Sunreps has always believed solar must be much cheaper to be ubiquitous. Quality around the edges can improve as time goes on, but to get into a large scale market, low cost and availability is everything. That has been and will remain Sunreps’ mantra, low cost, easy access, and easy installations. Low cost allows everyone to be flexible and make money. If Sunreps squeezes pricing down before there is competition, competition will be postponed. If competition is only PV, building owners will have a clear choice. PVs are imported with an efficiency of 20%. Sunreps’ All-American products will be half the price of PVs while producing 80% efficiencies. A typical US building spends 50% for heating and 50% for electricity annually.
Marketing to HVAC companies who are in cities that require rooftop screening is Sunreps entry point around the country for the commercial building sector.
Breaking through with one of the top 4 poultry conglomerates is where Sunreps agri-sector sales are aimed.
What have you already achieved?
Sunreps started with a vison of creating a new utilitarian solar collector. This collector had to be the least expensive, most efficient, and easiest to install solar collector, yet developed. We’ve done it.
Sunreps has designed, fabricated, and installed its patented solar rooftop equipment screening system for commercial buildings and agricultural poultry broiler barn solar collector installations. Sunreps sells, fabricates, and installs its rooftop equipment screening and solar ventilation air pre-heating collectors in the Puget Sound area of WA.
Sunreps licensed the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL) patent for the “fabric transpired solar collector”. Sunreps changed to the fabric collector after it realized that the steel, transpired solar collectors were simply too expensive. Sunreps began selling ATAS international’s InSpirewall in Seattle in 2009. This endeavor was unsuccessful due to the lack of cost-effectiveness. The payback period in Seattle was 18 years for a common south-wall installation. Needing to find a less costly collector Sunreps found a link to NREL’s “non-conductive transpired solar collector” patent. Sunreps became the first company to license this technology.
2012 Sunreps was chosen to be a competitor in the annual Cleantech Open. Because of this relationship Sunreps was introduced to the Mountain Energy Partnership (MEP), Longmount, CO. MEP is a solar testing company. The principals of MEP were former NREL scientists. 90% of MEP’s testing is for the DOE/NREL. In 1989 Greg Barker, one of the principals of MEP, was an engineering intern at NREL when Solarwall was going through its final testing stages at NREL in Golden, Co. Solarwall was patented in 1990. Since 1990 Barker has conducted over 40 major solar installation testing projects for the DOE and has been asked to be a solar judge at the US Solar Decathlon several times. Most notably, he reviewed and analyzed a botched Solarwall project for Walmart. His analysis of that ill-fated projected is now the touchstone document on how not to install transpired solar collectors and why.
Barker took Sunreps under his wing. He has conducted over 25 “pressure drop tests” for Sunreps on his company’s transpired solar collector testbed. Because of Barker’s NREL experiences with the technology and his scientific curiosity, he conducted all his testing at no charge to Sunreps. Typically, one pressure drop test from other solar testing facility costs $25,000.00 per test.
The pressure-drop test shows the efficiency of a transpired solar collector. All tests show how many CFM of air will pass through the collector surface at .10 inch H2O. The closest the pressure drop comes to 10 cfm the better the collector efficiency. Solarwall allows 7.5 cfm at .10 inch H2O and Sunreps’ 2307 dual layer fabric allows 8.85 cfm at .10 inch H2O. Sunreps’ 2307 fabric is better than a steel Solarwall collector in producing heat at .10 inch H2O.
Solarwall’s first Canadian installations were on poultry broiler barns in Eastern Canada. The installs were supported by the Canadian Government’s Department of Natural Resources. The Canadian government awarded a 75% grant for any chicken grower who installed Solarwall on their barns. On learning these facts Sunreps started to communicate with US poultry growers. PNW Poultry Growers allowed Sunreps to experiment with different solar collector fabrics and designs on their barns. When one installation achieved a 50% reduction in propane usage Sunreps was put in touch with an international poultry supply company, Southwestern Sales. Southwestern Sales supplies poultry house curtain wall fabrics in the Western Hemisphere and Australia. After a few collector demonstrations SWS wanted to become a part of the solar world in agriculture. Sunreps exclusively licensed its technology to SWS for three years in the poultry sector.
Before the agreement with SWS was signed Sunreps had applied to USDA for a $200,000 grant to put solar collectors on all of Draper Valley Farm’s 100 broiler barns in the State of Wa. Eventually, the grant was awarded to Sunreps but Draper Valley’s owners, Perdue Farms said they were not following through with the project because of their own budget restraints. They were required to provide $700,000.00 for the project to access the grant.
Excluded from working in the poultry sector for three years, Sunreps changed its focus to the commercial building market. Sunreps created a bridge product for the commercial sector to make the solar collectors more palatable to building owners. Sunreps invented the Solar Rooftop Equipment Screening System. The availability and price of commercial rooftop equipment screening systems have always plagued property managers in Redmond, Wa. When Sunreps suggested the introduction of a new screening system that did not have to penetrate the roof while also offering solar ventilation air pre-heating, local PMs in Redmond WA, supported it. Transwestern Property Management Co was the first company to purchase Sunreps’s solar rooftop equipment screening system. Since the first contract, Sunreps solar collectors and screening systems have been developed as they have been built on-site in Redmond. Screening installations on a grouping of 25 buildings in Redmond have been Sunreps’ source of income and experimentation simultaneously. Sunreps has worked with McKinstry, Lease Crutcher Lewis, University Mechanical Contractor, Sazan, and KPFF on screening and solar screening projects in the Puget Sound area.
John Wabel, has two solar patents, one a utility patent covering the commercial screening system including the transpired solar collector dual layer collector system and solar plenum. The other is a design patent that Southwestern Sales is offering the agri-sector. Sunreps has two more patents pending, both are off-shoots of the current utility patent. The pending patents will offer the long sought go-to-market solar product for the poultry sector.
In the commercial building sector, the patented plenum has a damper that either allows solar heated air into the RTU’s fresh air intake hood or ambient air. The solar damper opens, and closes based on the outside air temperature. The RTU controls operate based on the outside air temperature as well. The RTU and solar collector controls are in sync. The collectors only need to have air flowing through them to function. The air flow is created by the RTU’s blower fan. The fan is always on while the building is occupied. The collectors are sized to the fan.
The patented plenum is also crucial for the success of the poultry sector. The poultry plenum is different looking than the HVAC plenum, but the principles are the same. The plenum controls when the solar heat is wanted and when it is not wanted. The plenum opens and closes in sync with a barns fresh air inlet vents. The solar plenum dampers are literally connected to the fresh air vents of the barn. The solar vents use the power of the barn’s controllers, so no additional electronics or wiring are required for their installation.
The University of Georgia is the number #1 source of new knowledge to the poultry sector when it comes to barn ventilation. Live video testing of fabric collector results from UGA are available.
64% of the 145,000 poultry broiler barns are controlled by 4 US companies. Historically, a new product success by one of these leading companies requires/demands the others to follow.
Funding Ask - How much do you need to achieve your vision.
$2,000,000.00 will provide enough funding over time to allow Sunreps to complete its plans. The money will be used to upgrade Sunreps fabrication facility, website, hiring of sales, marketing, and engineering personnel.
Projections - What does winning look like if it all works out
Sunreps collectors will be installed on half of the commercial buildings RTUs in the US
Sunreps collectors will be a standard construction element on all poultry broiler barn in the US
Closing Slide - What’s next
Develop and install Solar hot air storage for commercial buildings that works in conjunction with Sunreps’ solar rooftop collectors
Carbon capture of unburned fuel coming out of the exhaust vents of commercial building’s RTUs
Develop a residential collector system