Sempa Hybrid Heating System

Mike Agerbo: Well an important consideration for a lot of businesses around the world is power, actually powering the business. We’ve got our guest Malcolm Metcalfe from Sempa Power Systems. Thanks for coming on the show. Malcolm Metcalfe: Well thank you. Mike Agerbo: I wanted to chat with you. You have a really interesting solution for businesses hybrid power system. Malcolm Metcalfe: Yes, we started the company aiming to implement solutions that were relatively green that would reduce green house gas emissions but very quick we realize that in order to implement them in most businesses, we had to have a value proposition that made sense. Our first target is to save money. Second is to reduce green house emissions and third is to save total energy. And we’ve been implementing these systems. They switch between electricity and fossil fuel. They basically use off peak electricity to displace fossil fuel and therefore generally reduce green house gas emissions and also save a lot of money. We started in Whistler where fossil fuel cost were quite high and implemented quite a number of jobs in that area. Actually, it turned out that savings were far more than we’d expected. The Four Seasons Hotel bought a system from us that have saved them consistently over $300,000 a year and it had a payback of well, under two years. And we grow on from there, we now have people in Toronto, Montreal Win Peg and we’re actually implementing systems that the moment they want to pay. Mike Agerbo: Well I think the whole return is an important component there. I know a lot of businesses are concerned about green house gas emissions but if they don’t see that payback happening in a short time, they typically don’t want to invest that money. Malcolm Metcalfe: That is true. The availability of off peak electricity is an interesting issue. Electricity is a very unique commodity. It is used the moment the instant that it’s produced. And large generating plants that are powered by nuclear energy or by coal which actually makes up the bulk of the North American energy supplies don’t like to change loads dramatically. During the daytime, there are about three hours that were very, very short of supply and during the night, we have huge surpluses. The price difference on the whole sale market typically in a day will vary by a factor of more than ten. There are very few commodities that do that. The night time surplus is very large and that is the energy that we are using to displace fossil fuel. Mike Agerbo: And so your system, when you put it into business, takes advantage of that thing. Malcolm Metcalfe: Yes. Mike Agerbo: And how hard is it to install system like you have to completely the whole system inside the building or could it be added on? Malcolm Metcalfe: No, typically we’ve been in installing in out on electric boiler along with existing boilers or heaters perhaps—as the case may be and a metering system to meter the total consumption power on the building and to be able to manage the whole system and then a fairly elaborate control system. The control system is something that we can remotely monitor and we manage it remotely for every site that we’ve implemented. Mike Agerbo: For businesses that want to find out more information, where can they go? Malcolm Metcalfe: They can call us at our offices or visit our website at www.sempapower.com. Mike Agerbo: Malcolm Metcalfe from Sempa Power Systems. If your business is interested in saving power and getting that return within three years, you’ll want to check out their website.