The home heating oil industry has a long and proud history, and Fuel Oil News has been there supporting it since 1935. It is an industry that has faced many challenges during that time. In its 77th year, Fuel Oil News is doing more than just holding
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36 FEBRUARY 2016 | FUEL OIL NEWS | www.fueloilnews.com new water to about 120° to 180° before it is introduced to the steam turbine, which helps save Bucknell on consumption of natural gas, Steiner said. Bucknell recently installed electronic controls designed to collect data on water flow and incoming and outgoing water tempera- tures, among other information, to document the effectiveness of the solar-powered installation, Steiner said. That information is expected to be available this spring. Steiner hoped the information would verify what he called one of the strengths of the Rayviance design—that the units can be integrated with existing systems. "One of the preconceptions is that you have to make an invest- ment above and beyond just the solar equipment that you're installing, or that you need to replace everything," Steiner said. In some cases that may be true, but not in all."If you're happy with your equipment, if it's still functioning very well, we're going to help you integrate," he said. The data from the Bucknell project should reflect savings in natural gas, Steiner said. "We're hoping to see 20% savings in [vol- ume of] natural gas" consumed, Steiner said. "That's our goal." But he said, "If we save 10% we're going to celebrate." The technology of the Rayviance units was developed for a proj- ect by the U.S. Agency for International Development in Nepal in the early 1980s. The units, constructed with type 304 stainless steel, aluminum, Pyrex and copper, are designed for a 25-year service life and minimal maintenance, Steiner said. Aluminum was added in the past year to help the units better withstand saline in coastal environments, where, Steiner said, "even the best stainless steel, over time, will corrode to a degree." For end users, the price of the units, which are made in three sizes, can range from approximately $5,500 to approximately $7,500, Steiner said. For dealers, a gross margin on sales of the units should be somewhere around 25%, Steiner and his partner, Dries van Wagenberg, said. They stressed that variables, including what a local market will bear, can influence that margin. Installation fees would likely vary according to local markets, they added. Steiner estimated that the return on investment for a home- owner "is looking to be five to seven years and commercially we're looking at three to five years," though he said those were conservative estimates that could be bettered in certain cases, depending on variables, notably the prevailing prices of electric- ity, oil and natural gas. Bob Takvorian, a business associate of the Rayviance partners, and a veteran of the wholesale oil industry who is based in Peabody, Mass., noted the "strong correlation between the price of heating oil and [interest in] the solar application." "With the price of heating oil continuing to fall," Takvorian said, "people's interest in spending extra money to install solar" is not a given. Rayviance aims to address that challenge by playing up specific attributes, Takvorian said, including that the units incur no additional electricity cost, require little maintenance, and, of special interest to fuel oil dealers, offer potential for a "hold and grow" program. "If the dealer is creative he can come up with programs to hold [onto] his oil accounts by locking them into some sort of a term with the Rayviance system," Takvorian suggested. Offering free maintenance of the solar units, for example, "basically costs [oil dealers] very little money" and keeps the oil account, Takvorian said. If financing can be made available to homeowners, dealers can offer a lease program, Takvorian said, where the homeowner pays for a solar system over time. Through that approach dealers can add customers, and grow their solar business, Takvorian said. Promoting a better understanding of solar-powered systems in general and of the Rayviance system in particular, is a continuing effort, Steiner and van Wagenberg, said. The partners tour with a custom-designed 28-foot trailer that contains a functioning Rayviance unit. "People wash their hands with warm water after a thirty, forty-five minute presentation," Steiner said. The partners toured New England, New York State, parts of Ohio, a number of states in the south, and Canada to spread the word about the system, meeting with fuel oil dealers, and participating in environ- mentally-themed fairs. Among the highlights was an appearance at a Mother Earth News Fair, for people interested in a "sustainable lifestyle." The partners are booked to attend three more such fairs in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas in 2016. The partners said they made presentations to the operations manager of the Cleveland Indians baseball team and property managers in the Cleveland area last year. Many office buildings in Cleveland still use steam, and some property managers are seeking less costly alternatives, Steiner said. Microbreweries are a potential market for the systems, he added, because they "have a great demand for hot water in the brewing process." Rayviance, which is based in Lewisburg, Pa., currently receives most of its units from a factory in Malaysia, but is in the process of shifting manufacture to the U.S., the partners said. Some 15% of units are made in the U.S. now; the aim is to increase that to 30 to 40% by the second quarter of this year, and to as much as 70% over the following two years, they said. In the U.S. the units are made in a metal fabrication shop in Honey Brook, Pa. Dairy farmers in Amish and Mennonite communities are pro- spective customers, the partners said, in part because dairy farmers must sanitize their milking system every day. That the solar device uses no additional power appeals to that market, Steiner said. l F O N Rayviance has a customized 28-foot trailer with a functioning solar- powered unit. After a presentation listeners are invited to wash their hands with water heated by the system. The trailer is here shown in front of the World Bank in Washington, D.C. BUSINESS OPERATIONS