Warwick firm sees bright future for solar on wheels

SEE THE LIGHT: Jeff Flath, president and CEO of eNow, shows off a demo truck for the company’s lightweight, plastic, solar panel. / PBN PHOTO/NATALJA KENT
SEE THE LIGHT: Jeff Flath, president and CEO of eNow, shows off a demo truck for the company’s lightweight, plastic, solar panel. / PBN PHOTO/NATALJA KENT

Solar energy to date has largely been focused on buildings – business and residential – and ways in which their inhabitants can reduce carbon footprints via personal responsibility.
But Jeff Flath, owner of eNow, a Warwick-based, solar-technology firm, is bringing solar to the trucking industry in an effort to allow companies to reduce gas emissions while saving money.
“The No. 1 draw was that no one had done it,” Flath said of his decision to bring solar technology to trucking. Second “was the value proposition of offsetting fossil fuel. There’s a lot more value in trying to save money.”
In early April, The Ocean State Clean Cities Coalition at the University of Rhode Island held a stakeholder meeting to showcase Flath’s technology.
Pat Pendergast, a URI graduate student studying for his master’s degree in environmental and natural-resource economics, said the meeting was meant to demonstrate how Flath’s product can reduce the need for trucks to idle and improve fuel efficiency.
“Everyone seemed really excited about it, mainly because there were a lot of concerns with solar-panel technology that have to do with the life cycle of it and the length of time it takes for it to reach a break-even point,” Pendergast said.
Five years ago, Flath was working for The Cooley Group in Pawtucket when he designed and developed, for the company, the first 100 percent solar-covered billboard in Times Square in New York.
When he left Cooley in 2011, he decided to take the idea of using solar power for purposes other than buildings and develop it for the transportation industry.
The challenge was creating a PV panel rigid enough to withstand the environmental hazards large trucks face, including poor road conditions, heat, cold, rain, snow and other weather-related factors.
The system captures energy so that truckers do not have to let their vehicles idle in order to keep their truck refrigerated and to control other operations, including lighting. Peter Arpin, managing partner of Arpin International, an East-Greenwich based moving company, said his firm long had been looking for ways to reduce energy when he connected with Flath.
“It was always our intent to create and innovate but we’re a mover, not a manufacturer,” Arpin said. “When Jeff became available, we transferred what we had built as a team and collaborated.”
Arpin said his company was particularly interested in the positive cash flow the solar paneling creates.
“Really, in this type of economy, you need to have a rate of return even from day one. It really creates power on a consistent basis for the drivers without having to be at a truck stop or plugged in somewhere,” he said.
Now Arpin serves as an advocate for eNow’s product, including at the Ocean State Clean Cities Coalition stakeholders meeting.
“At Clean Cities, we are involved in a lot of projects where the goal is to reduce Rhode Island’s dependency on petroleum,” said Pendergast, an intern with the coalition. “A big problem with trucks is they idle a lot. The eNow technology solar panel allows for those trucks to be running without burning gasoline.”
Though the technology is designed to be cost saving, there is overhead involved in acquiring it.
Arpin said for a 53-foot truck, the solar paneling would amount to about $10,000 but that there is a 30 percent federal tax credit and that Flath has designed a leasing program. He also said gasoline savings offset the lease cost.
“You get positive cash flow from day one,” Arpin said.
Flath said he has a contract with the Maine Department of Transportation and is in talks with several grocery distribution companies.
He’s also been attending trade expositions and is in the early stages of marketing the product internationally.
“People have to understand [this] isn’t really new,” he said. “Sometimes people just don’t want to jump in right away.” •

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