Podcast Transcript
The Clean Energy Chronicles with Sona Energy Solutions – Episode 4
JS: Hello and welcome to The Clean Energy Chronicles! My name is Julia Segal, Marketing Associate with Sona Energy. Today I’m here with Eric Arroyo, Sona’s VP of National Accounts, and our guest, April Frakes who is the Director of Commercial Business Development at Aeroseal. We’re so excited to have April on the podcast today. I’m going to hand it over to Eric to introduce our guest.
EA: Hey Julia. Hey, everyone. We have a great episode in store today. April works for Aeroseal, as Julia mentioned, one of Sona’s vendor partners, and she has worked with them for the last 8 years, in different roles. In her current role, April focuses on growing Aeroseal’s footprint in commercial buildings. April is very knowledgeable about the solution and the industry as a whole and we’re excited to have her share insights about Aeroseal’s solution and also learn about the different markets Aeroseal is currently in and their goals for the future.
AF: Thanks Eric, thanks Julia. I’m so glad to be joining you all here today.
JS: April, can you start by telling us a bit about the history of Aeroseal and how that leads us to where the company is today?
AF: Absolutely. Aeroseal was developed about 30 years ago at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Dr. Mark Modera, our founder, knew that buildings consume about 40% of energy produced in the United States. ASHRAE tells us that 75% of ducts leak 10-25%. He wanted to help target that energy waste by creating technology that can get to the leaks in existing ductwork without demolition. Basically, Dr. Modera’s idea was to create something that would get to all the seen and unseen leaks. Our technology, Aeroseal, does that all remotely and autonomously. From there, we were eventually bought by the Carrier Corporation and for a while, Aeroseal was under the United Technologies umbrella. Our current CEO, Amit Gupta, was the product manager for Aeroseal at Carrier. In 2008, when Carrier was selling technologies due to the downturn in the economy to focus on their core business, Amit and Dr. Modera teamed up to start the company we know as Aeroseal today. Since then, we have developed a new technology that also seals the building envelope, in addition to our original duct technology. In the past few years, we have gained new investor partners, such as breakthrough energy partners, a fund started by Bill Gates to reduce global greenhouse emissions, and 2150, a company that backs construction technologies that they feel have the potential to benefit billions of people, create billions in commercial value and lower gigatons of emissions.
EA: Wow, so there’s been a lot going on over the last few years with Aeroseal and it sounds like Aeroseal has definitely experienced some extreme growth in recent months. Do you have goals set for the next 12-24 months? If so, what do they look like?
AF: At Aeroseal, we feel a real sense of urgency to ensure our technology is implemented into the real world as quickly as possible so that we can impact global greenhouse emissions in a very real way. Recently, we just finished up our series B capital raise. That brings the total amount of investment in Aeroseal to 89M. However, the goal I am most excited about achieving is reducing carbon emissions from buildings by 1 gigaton each year. We are working diligently toward that goal now.
JS: So how did the capital raise open the doors for Aeroseal to achieve these goals?
AF: When I started at Aeroseal 8 years ago, I was employee number 38. We have grown now to over 270 employees all across the world. The capital helps us achieve our goals in a more targeted way. We are able to go after market segments and verticals that we could not before. As a matter of fact, we recently saw an opportunity in the Middle East and have entered into a MOU with Aramco in Saudi Arabia to help develop that market more.
EA: Wow, it sounds like there’s a lot of potential there and Aeroseal’s solution is across different markets. Could you talk about what those main verticals are?
AF: So if you are listening and you’ve heard of Aeroseal before, chances are you’ve seen us in the residential space on This Old House or Holmes on Homes. We have sealed over 260,000 residences all across the world. We also have an envelope technology that we focus on residential new construction in conjunction with Aeroseal duct. As a matter of fact, we’ve had tremendous success in this market and Beazer Homes has just made Aeroseal a standard for all of their new homes being built in the United States. We also have Aeroseal commercial, which is what I focus on. We have been working in existing commercial buildings around the world with a focus on saving energy by reducing consumption of energy needed by sealing up the duct work. You know, I work in a lot of buildings and there’s a lot of things you can do in new construction to reduce energy but in existing buildings, you are more limited, and that brings a lot of opportunity for Aeroseal in the commercial space.
JS: Right, and I actually didn’t know that about This Old House. I will have to tell my Mom because she loves that show! But more on the commercial side, Sona and Aeroseal have worked together on some retail projects. Eric, I know that you have been involved in a few recently. Can you tell us a bit about what that process looks like Eric?
EA: For sure and it was great. We recently did a test of Aeroseal with a large grocer and it was great being on site with the crew, getting to watch and experience the process. After taking some time to review with all of the teams involved, there were a few things that we wanted to talk with you about, April.
First, it was impressive to see how much of the leakage was sealed. Based on the data, the sealing was averaging between 92-98% across all the applications and areas throughout the building. This is a high rate and we know you see this across Aeroseal’s projects. What is it that allows the sealing to happen with this kind of a success rate?
AF: Aeroseal is an aerosol that is injected directly into the duct system. By pressuring the duct, we are able to send in the aerosolized sealant so that holes and gaps that are not visible to the naked eye or easily accessible are sealed, but we do not line or coat the duct. By constantly measuring the leakage using a duct pressure test throughout the process, we’re able to ensure we meet the levels you mentioned. Typically greater than 90%.
JS: With this same grocer rollout, there was a discovery we noticed once we got into stores. When we got into the ceilings, there was disconnected ductwork that the customer wasn’t aware of. So here we have two issues that Aeroseal is solving – it’s making the customer aware of the disconnect in their ductwork and significantly reducing the leakage in certain areas. As we expand into other markets with Aeroseal, is this a known issue we can bring to other types of properties beyond grocery? It seems that bringing this identification of the apertures or disconnects in the ductwork is just another value-add here.
AF: I could probably write a book on the crazy things we’ve seen when we’ve gone above ceilings and looked at the duct. I am confident that there was an area of that store that was always getting complaints about being too warm in the summer or too cold in the winter and they couldn’t figure out why air wasn’t making it to the space. When we get above the ceiling and see the disconnection, it all starts to make more sense. When we do a walk through and we talk to the facility managers on properties, there’s usually things we can identify that makes it easy to see that there’s problems. One of the major things that we usually see that are call outs are fans in offices or space heaters that usually show signs of disconnection or significant leaky ductwork.
EA: Wow, yeah and that’s great that you guys are able to point all of that out. You know, actually on the project for this store, we also discussed air balancing, which seems to be very important to a lot of these retail spaces, essentially keeping the equipment calibrated. On the topic of value-adds, this seems to be like another bonus, if you will, of the technology. Is this something that’s been part of the process before?
AF: Air balancing really optimizes HVAC system performance, it enhances comfort levels, improves air quality and reduces energy. It really ensures your building is operating as it was originally designed.
EA: You know it has been really interesting for me personally to see Aeroseal in action and the amount of savings we’ve seen in our recent projects. We’re expanding the rollout and know there will be continued success with implementing Aeroseal.
JS: Definitely, I know the Sona team is looking forward to doing more projects together and we’ve all been talking about how exciting it has been exciting for all of us to grow this relationship together. April, before we wrap up, what is next for Aeroseal? Where do you see the company heading in the near future?
AF: Aeroseal is focusing on growing our footprint in additional verticals. Our partnership with Sona Energy is helping us do that in the retail market, growing our envelope technology into the commercial new construction space and our R&D department is working hard to find new ways to use Aerosolized sealants in different applications such as gas pipelines.
EA: Well that’s great April, it sounds like there’s a lot of growth going on at Aeroseal which actually mirrors a lot of growth at Sona and we’re excited to work on a lot of these projects with you guys as well. And actually, I think we’ll revisit this conversation in a few months to see what kind of growth actually has transpired and also to see what’s merging in the markets and see where everything’s going. So, really appreciate you taking the time today and looking forward to all the stuff to come.
JS: Eric, April, thank you both for the great conversation and to everyone tuning in, for giving this episode a listen! You can find the transcript on our website, www.sonaenergy.com and posted to our LinkedIn page. Thanks for listening to The Clean Energy Chronicles and we’ll see you next time!