Miramichi company develops bright idea
Published Friday November 7th, 2008
Working on an oil refinery project in Alberta several years ago, a light clicked on in the head of Kevin Gallant.
The company paid huge sums of money, and spewed exhaust, for street lights in the construction camp. The diesel generators burned fuel all night. Paid employees tended them around the clock, just to illuminate an intersection, not to power construction workers' tools.
Back home in Miramichi, the civil engineer and New Brunswick Community College Instructor went to work on what turned into the solar powered Envirosite Lite (TM) that Gallant's company Southside Air Inc. now builds with help from nine different electrical, machine and other shops in New Brunswick.
That was a year and one-half ago. If the enterprise expands as he envisions, Southside Air will soon need its own shop at least for final fabrication and quality control, Gallant said in interview in Saint John where he made a presentation at the recent New Brunswick Innovation Forum.
Southside Air will soon hire a chief executive officer, and employment could go well beyond the approximately 80 people who work on Envirosite Lites at shops in Miramichi, Atholville, Moncton and Fredericton.
Production started on Oct. 7. Since then Gallant and his collaborators have built three Envirosite Lites - one sold in Alberta, another in Florida, and the original one which he intends to keep. The fourth one is under construction now.
Now, Southside Air must ramp up production to fill two big orders: five to go to Alberta and 12 for the city of Miramichi.
The city needs the lights in time for the pond hockey tournament in February. The Kinsmen Club will lease them to light up "green festivals" and fundraising events.
An Envirosite Lite makes no noise, burns no fuel, emits no pollution or greenhouse gases, but provides ample lighting for nighttime activities outdoors using about a seventh of the power other systems on the market. "We're going to be in a wasteless society," Gallant said.
The Envirosite Lite is mounted on a trailer for towing down the road. The 30-foot tower folds down to fit into a standard shipping container.
The photovoltaic solar panels charge batteries during the day to power LED lights at night. They can run for 100 hours without recharging, in the event of extended bad weather.
A person could buy most of the components to build an Envirosite Lite, Gallant said, all except his patented "phase change" material which he says makes it work.
This material, which includes potato waste, stores heat from the sun during the day to keep batteries warm at night. Anybody who has listened to a car starter motor groan on a windy January morning understands the problem with cold batteries.
Without cold air draining them, the Envirosite Lite batteries can power the low-power LEDs lights for 100 hours on a single charge through the coldest winter night on an Alberta oil field, Gallant says.
His interest in renewable energy began in his childhood in Fredericton. "I was nine years old when I had my first wind turbine," he said. "I knew when I was nine years old I was doing renewables." He built his first solar collector in Grade 7.
At 18 in 1982 he got a summer job with the ADI Group in Fredericton, and worked there off and on until 1990. He attended technical school in Saint John in 1986-87. He completed his engineering degree at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton in 1992.
He moved to Miramichi where his mother Julie (Furlong) Gallant has roots. He got married, had children.
Gallant began Southside Air four years ago with a $20,000 loan from the Community Business Development Corporation - Northumberland, supported by the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. He has it almost paid back.
He keeps his laboratory in his basement. Southside Air installs solar panels for hot water and space heating, among other things.
Envirosite Lite technology has more applications than lighting construction camps, or possibly disaster sites. It can power cameras to monitor border crossings, or recharge plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.
"Right now there are not too many electric cars," Gallant said; however, both General Motors and Toyota aim to place them in showrooms by 2010.
By then, Envirosite Lites will sell for $14,500, down from the current $19,500. The city of Miramichi got a deal at $17,500 each for a dozen.
Backyard mechanics will buy Envirosite Lite's, Gallant predicts, to charge the vehicles they build by pulling the engines from old gasoline burners to make room for electric motors. A crew is already converting a truck for Gallant. It will be Southside Air's first company vehicle.
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