Tucked away off the entrance road to Olde Rope Mill Park in Woodstock is one of Cherokee County’s largest industrial employers, Kirk-Rudy, which is investing its resources into a solar-paneled carport and electric car charging station.
The renewable technology is expected to supply all electricity needs for the 100,000-square-foot building that houses 95 employees.
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SPECIAL
Russell Seifert, who owns Woodstock-based Creative Solar USA, came up with a car canopy concept where solar panels are mounted onto a carport structure that will supply power to paper-handling equipment Kirk-Rudy’s 100,000-square-foot building off of Rope Mill Road.
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Rick Marshall, president of the company, which sells professional printing equipment, said he’s excited to be on the leading edge.
“It’s definitely a feel-good project for us,” Marshall said.
The $500,000 project is expected to be completed by late March or early April.
Marshall said the idea came after the company was exploring other cost-cutting measures. He said he attended a Georgia Power conference last spring, but at the time wasn’t sold on the idea of using renewable energy.
“But I dove a little deeper into it and realized that there are lots of credits and grants out there and started running the numbers and it made more sense,” he said. “So, we contacted some suppliers of these panels and got quotes and now we’re off and running.”
Russell Seifert, owner and CEO of Woodstock-based Creative Solar USA, is responsible for the solar car canopy, which runs on a 100-kilowatt system comprised of 432 panels.
Marshall said the canopy, which will have 50 parking spaces, works better than rooftop panels because installing them on a roof would require penetrating the surface and opening it up to leakage issues, and panels need to be cleaned periodically, which would be easier to do with them located closer to the ground.
Seifert said he serves Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina and is working on licensing in Florida. He also is doing business in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where there is an energy crisis.
Creative Solar began in 2008, and Seifert said he started the company because he saw the cost benefits of solar technology, as well as health and environmental benefits.
“With solar, you put it on a house and it emits no fumes, there’s no noise and it runs for 30 years,” Seifert said. “It’s not generally in most utility companies’ business files because it doesn’t make them money and that’s fine, but the utility companies, like Georgia Power and Cobb EMC, they have a lot of programs in place and they have turned a corner to where they’re more supportive of solar in the state of Georgia.”
Specializing in commercial, agricultural and residential work, Seifert said when he began working on plans for Kirk-Rudy, he knew a partnership with Greg Crittenden of Metro Plugin for an electric car charging station would make a great package deal for the printing equipment retailer.
“I was excited to come across Greg. He’s amazing, and I wanted to help promote his business and always had a dream of years ago, putting a charging station underneath the solar panels that charge the car plus provide shade to the car so it doesn’t heat up,” he said.
Crittenden, a Towne Lake resident, started Metro Plugin last spring. Always interested in renewable energy, the opportunity arose after a back injury led the Federal Aviation Administration to medically retire him.
“As a pilot, over the 30 years I’ve been flying, I’ve been watching the skies go from clear blue in 1980 when I could see 100 miles almost every day, to this brown, haziness over the last few years where it’s really hard to see more than say 10 miles,” Crittenden said.
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Janet Pelletier | Ledger-News
Stephen Taylor, left, stands by his 2008 Tesla Roadster electric car as Greg Crittenden, owner of Woodstock-based Metro Plugin, shows one of the electric car charging stations he sells and installs, the ClipperCreek.
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Even before he started Metro Plugin, Crittenden was working on patenting a design for an electric car charger, but abandoned it after a different business was successful in acquiring one for its own design. But all the research he did got him started. Crittenden said General Motors and Nissan are poised to introduce the Chevy Volt and the Nissan Leaf in Atlanta by year’s end.
“Nissan and GM are saying by the third quarter of this year we will see those cars being delivered here in Atlanta,” Crittenden said. “Ford has announced that for their electric vehicles, Atlanta is one of their launch cities and that will happen at the end of this year.”
The Leaf is a pure electric car, while the Volt is electric but runs off of a gas-powered engine. Crittenden said he’s interested in buying a Volt, and estimated that car buyers could save upwards of $1,300 a year in fuel costs.
“If you had a car that drove 25 miles per gallon and you drove it 40 miles a day, using the assumption that in Georgia the average kilowatt hour is about 11 cents per kilowatt hour, you’re going to save approximately $1,300 a year on fuel costs,” he said. “That does not include the fact that with the Nissan Leaf, you will not be paying for oil changes or tune-ups. It’s just an electric motor and a battery. So your maintenance costs drop significantly as well.”
Because charging stations are so new and have yet to penetrate the area, Crittenden said the Volt makes sense to him because a driver will not engage the gas engine until they’ve driven more than 40 miles, but has an advantage over the Leaf for when he’s making longer trips.
“I see the Nissan Leaf as being for those who live Inside the Perimeter,” he said.
The installation of a charging station at Kirk-Rudy will be the first for Crittenden, who said he’s been working on forging relationships with manufacturers, electrical contractors and partnering with Creative Solar.
“We think the two industries and businesses dovetail nicely,” Crittenden said of Creative Solar, adding that Seifert has been a good mentor to him. “I really owe a lot to him.”
There are industry advantages for a business to installing a car charging station, Crittenden said. Doing so can establish a company as a leader in sustainable energy, similar to the U.S. Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy and Design) program, as well as being a perk for employees.
Metro Plugin sells and installs two types of charging stations, one made by ClipperCreek, which is going in at Kirk-Rudy, and another by GoSmart Technologies, which has credit card capabilities and is suited for a retail operation that’s looking to generate revenue.
The chargers for businesses cost an average of $3,500 and installation varies depending on location, materials required and level of difficulty, but can average between $5,000 and $10,000, Crittenden said.
There are federal tax benefits – 30 percent up to $1,000 for consumers and 30 percent up to $30,000 for businesses. Georgia has a state tax credit for businesses only that states businesses that install a charging station can get a credit of 10 percent of the charger’s price or $2,500, whichever is less.
Though electric car charging stations have yet to make their imprint in Georgia, Crittenden said he believes the future is not too far away. A first indication of that, he said, is a $230 million EV project under way in Tennessee, being run by ECOtality, which will oversee the installation of 1,500 commercial and residential chargers. Cities receiving them include Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville and Chattanooga. A mandate of chargers serving a 25-mile radius means the far northern part of Georgia, near Chattanooga, will have access to them, Crittenden said. The entire project includes 16 cities/major metro areas and the District of Columbia, and is being funded by the U.S. Department of Energy via the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the federal stimulus). The grant funding is being matched by private investment.
“I think it’s coming and I think it’s a lot closer than we realize,” he said.
