Gary Cuccio
Mt Pleasant, SC (USA)
Role(s):
Founder/Owner/Principal
Renewable Energy Systems
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Startup
Location:
Mt Pleasant
Industry:
Energy
Year Founded:
2008
Number Employees:
1-10 people
Description:
Fuel oil is a primary source of heating in the mid Atlantic and Northeastern United States,6.3 million homes with a $20 billion annual spend.Though not environmentally friendly, fuel oil has traditionally been a convenient and cost effective heating solution in areas where there is no infrastructure available for natural gas. Given this climate, a residential heating solution with an environmentally friendly fuel and low cost pricing structure will provide a long term value both to the consumer and to the investment community.
Wood pellet heating systems operate at about 70% of the cost of traditional oil furnaces with 75% less CO2 emissions. While these systems have been available for a number of years they currently have a very limited market penetration of about 1%. One of the main reasons for this low market penetration is due to there being no convenient wood pellet home heating systems in place to effectively compete with the traditional #2 fuel oil infrastructure. We believe that we can address this gap and in doing so, create a new market for wood pellet heating systems similar to the one that has been developed in Europe, which currently exceeds $1 billion in sales. We have developed a system that will utilize a combination of existing wood pellet heating technologies allowing us to provide a fully integrated heating solution with convenience comparable to traditional fuel oil heat. Our system will provide the homeowner with a 20% to 30% reduction in cost and a 75% reduction in CO2 emissions. Our unique in-home system design combined with a convenient home delivery system will facilitate development of a new market for wood pellet heating. Our initial target market of only 13 counties in southeast PA contains over 650,000 homes currently using #2 fuel oil with a $2 billion annual spend. Pellet heating will provide a cost and environmental benefit for home owners using electric heat similar to those using oil. The Federal Government and the State of Pennsylvania are currently providing incentives to homeowners and small businesses of up to 28% of the cost of new pellet furnace installations in an effort to promote reduced carbon emissions and renewable fuels. Once our fully integrated heating solution model is established and optimized we plan to replicate the concept in other identified markets in the Northeast, Midwest and Northwest regions of the US.