Allison Sorrette, Sean Williams, and Samuel Havelka presented their company website designed to provide solar panels to everyone for free.
Captum Lux pays for the installation using sponsors, bank loans, or money out of their account to pay for the installation which is then repaid by selling the energy to the electric company. Once that debt is paid back with interest, the homeowner would receive 70% of the energy which would directly decrease their electric bill and 30% would be given to Captum Lux and sold to electric companies to fund future projects.
We focus on providing solar panels in an affordable, accessible, and aesthetically pleasing way by taking care of all the hassle for the homeowner. Through our company, you can save yourself money and save the environment at the same time.
Links:
Captum Lux Website
PowerPoint Link
7 comments:
First of all I just want to say that I absolutely love this BRIGHT idea! I actually want to get skylights and solar panels for my home at some point, so I really hope this business model gets sponsored. Let's start with minor improvements to the project to get the "negativity" out of the way. The only things I recommend are: a price range estimate for colored solar panels and some statistics of how much more or less a certain colored solar panel would produce in terms of electricity; a decrease in the years in debt someone would be for these panels by maximizing profit (90%) and still giving the homeowner compensation for using their roof (10%); and offer assistance with the placement of the energy storage systems in people's homes.
My only concern about this project is the wellness of the local electric companies. From a business standpoint, this project could put the electric companies out of business since the bills keep going down as more energy is collected by the homeowner's panels. The only reason Captum Lux wouldn't monopolize the electricity industry is because they use panels offered by different companies, so it would just be boosting competition for those companies. From an environmental standpoint I feel like Captum Lux is the perfect solution for affordable solar panels and thus, affordable clean energy. As humanity tries to cut down on our carbon footprint, we need to be more concerned with the future welfare of the planet and not how much money is made.
My favorite part about Captum Lux, besides the fact that it's affordable, is its design options. You could even offer design packages, like get the solar panel patio and the roof tiles together for some discount in the amount of debt the person has. Basically rewarding them for using as much roof space as possible. Personally I would get the solar shingles in slate gray because they pass as real shingles and look great. I believe these was the design Dr. J was super impressed with because it looked like actual shingles.
Overall your project was one of my favorites and I really like how well you executed it.
I found Captum Lux to be an excellent way to benefit the environment, economy, and consumer all at once. The biggest downside to it is the time it takes before the consumer can benefit from the solar panels. I definitely think that including a an option that allows the consumers to pay for the installments as well. That would certainly cut down time constraints for Captum Lux as well so that the revenue wheel stars rolling faster. That way the consumer can reap the benefits sooner and you all have the funds for more free installs sooner. Of course keep the option for a completely free turnover as well with the wait to pay off the debt.
In addition, I really like how you plan to include electric companies in on this plan so that they still have revenue coming in while consumers are saving money. In all honesty it looks like you all have the potential to completely remove the need for electric companies but the time delay across the board will not show how their profits will drop as more and more people are able to switch over to your fully solar system.
I really love this idea because you guys managed to think of just about everything and even found a way for people to volunteer labor. The only thing that I think was missed was an explanation of how the energy from the solar panel gets stored. Add that and you are good to go!
I really enjoyed this project and presentation. I found it such a fitting issue for three of our engineers to tackle.
My biggest concern with this project was convincing the third parties to purchase the energy as a way to pay off the solar panels. I did not see any company willingly paying money to a company that would eventually put them out of business. However, Sam addressed this very logically by pointing out that even if the local companies will not purchase the energy, someone will. I really liked the idea of the local companies purchasing the energy because it would have been a selfless act on their behalf to help improve the environment. Unfortunately, capitalism does not always allow for companies to act selflessly.
Similarly, I question how this company would go about getting sponsors. I can not imagine many wealthy donors willingly spending much money on this project because of the fact that the benefits take so long to actually see. Granted, this issue was addressed with the 90% - 10% proposal, but I still question if people would get behind something like this. I do not doubt that people would back the project once it was well established, but I think it would struggle a lot to get off the ground. Out of the dark? I am not as good at light puns as Allison, Sean, and Sam are.
The name and logo of this company was BRILLIANT. To be honest, the whole project was brilliant. It is something I would most definitely take advantage of if I were a homeowner.
The idea for this product was amazing!! I love this idea and would use this company once it has gotten started and developed a sturdy base. I’m surprised this is not a real thing already! This is a really creative idea! The options you provided make this even more alluring!
I feel strongly about environmental problems, and this could make a large impact. One of my concerns is if this was to take off and become wide spread, what would happen if too much electricity was being made for electric companies to buy? For example, if the majority of Memphis homes had solar panels and the energy was being sold to MLGW, could there be the problem of MLGW not buying all the energy because there is a surplus? Then would you have to raise the percentage of energy the homeowners receive?
Another concern is starting this project. As shown in your presentation, solar panels are not cheap! Would you need something like Shark Tank, kickstarter, etc. in order to get this started or would you rely on loans?
Although those are theoretical “what-ifs,” something smaller about the website in general is I would put general pricing information about the shingles and the options. You could also consider making some type of algorithm or excel spread sheet on how to calculate a general price for your home. This would make a great tab to have on your website. As you gain more sponsors, I would add a sponsor page as well.
Could this go global? I think this would be amazing if it could!! Think about all of the problems it could solve or help alleviate! It could provide energy to those in need or in poorer parts of the world. This would help those areas with health care, food, education, and more! This would BRIGHTEN people’s lives everywhere! Why hasn’t this been invented yet?! I guess now it has.
This is one of my favorite projects because the the concept of making solar panels available to the general public with little to no cost to themselves is not only related to my major of study but an idea with financial promise.
Discussing the feasibility of the project rather than preemptively generating copious amounts of work is the best way to go in a world where an idea should be discarded when a terminal roadblock is reached. The same principle apples to physical inventory; it is best to heavily research your business and its potential before gathering physical inventory, which is the same thing you have done by creating a business model.
With that being said, the liability in your business model is in the first few years of operation; based on your research, you claimed that you will receive a net 100% ROI (Return-On-Investment) within the first 6 - 10 year of operation, meaning that you won't be returning a profit until that amount of time after your first installation. Moreover, the holy grail of your business model would be when your net profit is greater than your accrued interest and debt and the yearly profit exceeds the compounded interest rate. I would expect your yearly profit to exceed the interest rate long before the net profit is greater than the accrued interest and debt.
For the intents and purposes of this comment, I'll say that the measure of your business model is in its ability to survive until the singularity of which the net profit is greater than the accrued interest and debt (total debt). This singularity is known as 'solvency' in business.
The bare-bones formula for this solvency period isn't too bad:
yearly-profit * number of solar panel houses > interest-rate*(cost of solar panel houses * number of solar panel houses + accrued interest - cost of solar panel houses * number of solar panel houses paid off - profit paid toward interest)
Given that different sources of debt will give you varying interest rates, this formula isn't so clean-cut. Also, if your plan is to go into crowdfunding, understand than crowdfunding is a debt because you will need to offer your crowdfunders something in return, meaning that you'll need to use their money specifically on the product and company infrastructure.
As can be seen from my previous comment, it will take a long time until you are making a net profit on your business, making it more of a long term investment with potential for improvement with the development of technology.
There is an additional cutoff point that you need to achieve in this business:
Not only do you want your yearly profit to be capable of sustaining the cost of an entire solar panel installation operation, but you want money to pay your employees. This means you'll need to adjust the period of your solar panel installation operation so that your company isn't at a huge net loss, and once your reach solvency, you can start reducing this period so that the frequency of solar panel installations is larger (meaning the period is smaller).
However, this will take a large amount of time, but it is profitable. I can only imagine that this is the reason why this isn't a widespread business idea.
This project is very innovative and ambitious. It solves the issue of energy consumption, and the solution is very effective. Many people are often too lazy to change their lifestyles in order to conserve energy. This project can give people the incentive to save energy by saving them money. The time needed to create a project like this would be very long. If this company is to operate for many years, large amounts of money would be needed to start this project. Also, if maintenance and repairs need to be conducted, where would the money come from if the earnings made from the 30% of energy made from the solar panels go towards the installation of other systems? Some of that income would have to be rearranged to take those factors into account.
There may be another problem the project has to solve. It is too good of a project that electric companies would feel threatened by this brilliant idea. There used to be a time in America where companies would compete by increasing the quality of their product or lowering prices. Now, companies undergo complex schemes to take out competition, or they pay lobbyists and Congressmen to pass legislation. I can see energy companies becoming aggressive towards any idea that could take away their earnings. However, the fact that it is a really good solution could allow the project to survive due to support from people who want to conserve the planet.
I see this project being very effective once it overcomes those issues though. The fact that a home owner would not have to be involved with much of the tedious work is great. People love seeing investments paying off, and this appears to be a project where the investment is well worth it.
The website is very well developed and easy to navigate. The design is sleek and sharp. The descriptions are very professional, and any person would be able to understand the basic concept of Captum Lux. This idea has the possibility of expanding if it were an operational company. I very much enjoy technology being applied to solve major issues in the world. The problem is large companies and the government that is bought by such companies would not let an idea that threatens their system. You would need to be rather rich and important like Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg for the public to accept this idea and not be brainwashed by the government.
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