Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on Seattle 2.0, and imported to GeekWire as part of our acquisition of Seattle 2.0 and its archival content. For more background, see this post.
By Matt Hulett
I have known Chad Maglaque for years. We worked together at RealNetworks back when we were trying to figure out how to build products that delivered interesting broadcasting experiences over the Internet when it wasn’t very sophisticated. We’re talking about audio and video over plain ‘ol telephone lines (POTS) folks. Some of the lessons that we learned back in the day before broadband, wifi, etc were invaluable. Many of those lessons were about developing bootstrapped systems based on available infrastructure, delivering the right product set for the appropriate life cycle curve, and how to scale a simple product concept into a big idea. I see some of those same lessons in Chad’s new project called Clarian Technologies. He has this fantastic product called the Jellyfish.
Chad is working on a big idea. Imagine buying a renewable energy device at Home Depot for a couple of hundred dollars and then actually getting paid an annual dividend at the end of the year. Chad wants to provide the power to the people (and back to the grid) using a simple device with a lot of complex software in the backend to deliver a bootstrapped smart grid system. I really love what he is doing. The timing seems really right for this idea. This might be the time to be chasing windmills.
Clarian is developing Plug-In Renewable Energy for wind and solar at cost that homeowners can afford. Homeowners can go down to Home Depot, Best Buy or Costco, and for a few hundred dollars can pick up our Jellyfish Wind Turbine or our Sunfish Solar Panels, bring them home and plug them in. There’s no special wiring needed – they just plug into an existing outlet. In addition to pumping power into your home, they automatically supply any excess power to the grid. Plus with onboard Wi-Fi, the Jellyfish and Sunfish are both smart-grid enabled, allowing your local utility to track, monitor and manage their power output, and in some cases, even provide you with an annual dividend on top of what you’re already saving on your monthly power bill. And each of our devices is plug-n-play so they can be daisy chained together to create a scalable system of any size that fits every budget.
How did you come up with the idea of the Jellyfish?
Renewable energy is completely out of reach for the average home owner. Turn-key systems cost thousands of dollars and are difficult to install – the biggest hurdle of all in most cases is just getting connected to the grid. What’s needed is something that’s affordable, safe and easy to install. It’s that simple really.
Why hasn’t someone does this before? There have been plenty of “big wind” strategies before. So, what makes your approach different?
For decades, the industry has been totally focused on centralized generation – big hydro, big coal and more recently big wind. What they’ve ignored for years is a consumer hunger to generate their own power. And because the cost of installation is anywhere from 30%-50% of the cost of typical residential system, the only solution to date has been systems that cost thousands of dollars or more. Instead of assuming that bigger is better, what really needs to be tackled is providing a solution that’s affordable and easy to install. The Jellyfish Wind Turbine and Sunfish Solar Panels can be installed in an afternoon without any contractors or inspectors needed. Smaller really is better.
Do the public utilities view you as a friend or a foe (or both)?
Not only do utilities view us a friends, but because we’re sitting right in the consumer’s home they view us as both a conservation resource, as well as a smart-grid resource – two for one if you will. On the conservation side, we’re reducing the overall load on an aging grid – as the old saying goes, the cheapest megawatt to generate is the one you don’t have to. On the smart-grid side, the built-in networking capabilities allow your local utility to track, monitor and manage power output, and in turn balance load, improve grid reliability and even further lower their transmission and distribution costs.
How are you going to approach getting this idea out into the marketplace from an execution and investment perspective?
From an execution perspective we’re partnering with best of breed suppliers in the wind and solar industry to integrate their existing components into our plug-in technology offering – folks like BP Solar, Kyocera, Sharp, Xantrex, APC and others – we’re looking to be disruptive, but not reinventing the wheel where it already exists. The distribution channels that we’ll be focusing on are retail ( Costco, Home Depot, Best Buy), local utilities (for example, open up you monthly bill to find a coupon for free installation of a Jellyfish or Sunfish), solar and wind installers/distributors (right now these guys sit waiting on a call for that next big commercial/residential system. They’re actually our biggest fans of all), and finally the residential developer market (why wait until after the home/condo is built, install one now). From an investment perspective, we’re currently self-funded. In the current investment environment we plan to build as we grow, starting with earlier adopters and then expanding into the mass consumer market, developing a product that will be difficult to ignore.
