By Alex Nicoll | Nov 29, 2022
- Enviro Power has built a boiler that turns excess heat into electricity and saves landlords cash.
- The boiler can be installed by regular HVAC technicians and is produced by a top industry brand
- CEO Dan Nadav walked us through the pitch deck the firm is using to raise money right now.
World leaders, corporations, and landlords, one way or another, are feeling more pressure to reduce carbon emissions in order to fight climate change. The need for action is amplified by investors who want to steer their money to the cause, and by the growing magnitude of natural disasters. To Dan Nadav, the CEO of Enviro Power who has dedicated his 20-year career to harnessing excess energy in industrial applications such as gas pipeline operations, the situation is becoming more dire by the day.”We don’t have time to waste,” Nadav said, emphasizing that businesses must — pardon the metaphor — put “the foot on the gas pedal, at full speed” to address carbon emissions.
Nadav and his green tech colleagues are working on instant fixes. They want “practical solutions” that are available now, he said, and accessible to owners of apartment buildings whose pollution is only set to increase as the winter heating season approaches.
Enviro Power’s contribution to the solution is the manufacturing of water boilers that capture excess heat and turn it into something everyone can use: electricity. The company has rolled out the “SmartWatt” product with HVAC giant Burnham Holdings, with an initial goal of improving accessibility for owners of buildings new and old.
Enviro Power focused its developers on boilers because the units are changed out every 15 years or so when their efficiency suffers, or they fail. Its design, which wraps a steam-powered “power plant” around the boiler, is meant to be easy and simple for HVAC technicians to understand, install, and service.
“No one needs to be educated on how to replace a heating system with our product,” Nadav said, compared to the workforce training required for most other green technologies, like on-site solar panel installation.
While it’s easy to install, that doesn’t mean it’s not powerful as an onsite power generator. Nadav said it can even operate when the power is out as an emergency generator.
The CEO conceded that his units aren’t magic bullets to reverse climate change, but reiterated they can be something meaningful for the here-and now. His next step: a model that can be fueled by hydrogen instead of fossil fuels, and another designed for single-family homes.
Enviro Power raised $5.9 million in its first round of funding in 2020 from Connecticut Innovations and Burnham, which helps manufacture the boilers, followed by a $2 million round of additional financing at the end of last year. Nadav walked Insider through the pitch deck the firm is using now to raise funds to expand and roll out its operations. The company’s goal is not just to decarbonize buildings, but to do so as fast as possible.