Power Of The Urban Wind: Mariah Power CEO Mike Hess (Part 3)

SM: What are the requirements of a home, and how did you derive that there are 13 million homes that can handle your solution?

MH: You need a lot that is half an acre or larger and at least a Class 3 wind.

SM: How much space would it take up?

MH: The turbine is 30 feet tall by 4 feet wide. It is a small area in terms of what we are doing. The difference between a vertical-axis turbine like ours and a horizontal-axis turbine is that horizontal turbines need to be higher in the air. They need to be 50 to 60 feet high. We are trying to work at a lower height, thereby mitigating the sitting and permitting problems that are caused by having something so high in the sky.

SM: If you put a turbine somewhere on your property, what are the wiring requirements?

MH: There is a set of standards called grid-tie that allows you to connect to your circuit breaker. Using net metering, you can put excess power back on the grid and give it back to the utility. That utility will turn your meter backwards.

SM: Does that require having a smart meter installed?

MH: Since 1978, most meters have been able to turn forwards or backwards. Smart meters are much more capable. All you really need is a meter that can go forwards and backwards on usage. Most people have them. Smart meters are more integrated into the utility grid and into your appliance use.

SM: When the founding team of Mariah Power came together, did you have a good idea about this market? Did you know it?

MH: No. The market did not exist. We are talking about an urban market where we can be inside cities and towns versus the rural market where we would be powering farms. The urban market did not exist at all. We were trying to create that market.

SM: What are the first three things you did to create that market?

MH: We committed to absolutely telling the truth about the performance of our unit. We intended to change the dynamic of the marketplace by stating truly what the performance was and backing it up by having good test data that validated it would do what we said it would do.

Our second goal was to meet the requirements of an urban area. It had to be aesthetically pleasing, it had to be virtually silent, and it had to fit into an urban area without being higher or taller than traditional wind power. We really tried hard to fit into the environment. We knew we would spin a lot slower than a propeller. We only spin about two times the speed of wind whereas a propeller spins at seven to eight times the speed of wind. That would give us a huge advantage from both a safety and from a viewing standpoint. Birds will be able to see our system spinning. We will avoid some of those issues that traditional wind has had to deal with.

SM: How did you deal with investors given that your goal was to create a market?

MH: Everyone was pushing to get into renewable energy. People were trying to figure out what it meant and what it did. We were trying to give them a vision of how to move it into the marketplace. Because of the price of electricity, we had to make it low-cost with a faster payback than had traditionally been done with renewable energy. We wanted to be the low-cost product in renewable energy that the average person could afford to buy.

SM: How did your investors receive that pitch?

MH: Initially the first two years I was funded by angels. Most of them bought into the pitch and helped us accomplish what we were trying to do.

This segment is part 3 in the series : Power Of The Urban Wind: Mariah Power CEO Mike Hess
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