Two ASU alumni brothers are bringing the California coast one step closer to 100 percent sustainable.
James and Mike Meringer are bringing sustainable streetlights to the Santa Cruz Wharf through their partnership with the GreenWharf Initiative, which introduces sustainable technology to coastal communities.
Upon graduating from the College of Technology and Applied Sciences with a degree in Manufacturing, James co-owned a commercial construction company in the valley in 2004. However, upon noticing the poor market conditions in 2009 and the effect on competitors, he opted to open a solar division of the company, Mira Bella Energy. Soon after, the utilization of energy-efficient products decreased and businesses sought a new technology.
“So with this realization in mind, we set out in 2012 to design products that were not only functional, but elegant as well and could be embraced by architects and designers for their customers. The Santa Cruz Solar Streetlight was the first product born out of this paradigm,” CEO of Mira Bella Energy, James said.
As of now, the solar powered, sustainable, LED street lamp is the newest technology featured at Green Wharf. While competitor products only collect energy in the middle of the day, the solar panel on the “Santa Cruz Street Lamp” utilizes a bi-facial solar cell, mounted vertically on the pole, allowing the pole to collect sunlight both early morning and late afternoon.
Most products feature a typical flat mounted panel but fog (known as a marine inversion,) along the California coast severely, reduces the amount of energy collected. With the advanced configuration created by James, scattered light reflecting off the water surface and cloud cover touches each face of the vertically-oriented product, doubling the energy collection.
“The trick was to design a product that would be dependable enough to provide an 8-year service life and provide light comparable to the existing incandescent lights,” James said. “It is our belief that we hit our mark with this product. It is different from other companies’ offerings so much so that we have applied for patents to protect many novel aspects of the design.”
In addition to this, the custom lithium-ion battery pack within the street lamp is capable of handling temperatures more than 145 degrees. The pack allows the pole to run off light during the day and battery overnight.
“These features help to illustrate the level of detail that went into designing the product,” James said. “One more goal I need to mention. We are dedicated to 100 percent assembly within the borders of the U.S. We truly feel that the tide of outsourcing is reversing. Manufacturing can be done effectively and competitively on U.S. soil utilizing a domestic workforce.”
While James created the product, he left the advertising of the product up to his brother, alumnus and collaborator Mike. During a business trip to Santa Cruz, Mike stumbled upon the GreenWharf Initiative, which currently holds a public-private partnership between the city of Santa Cruz and the University of California Santa Cruz. With their product and audience in mind, he deemed the Santa Cruz Wharf an appropriate place to showcase their product alongside wind turbines and electric vehicle charging stations.
“This was an exercise in research and the principles of market development that I acquired from my time as a Sun Devil,” Mike said. “'A', to research the wharf's mission and 'B', explain how it is that our product can take them that much further in reaching their stated objective.”
Coincidentally, the architectural lighting of the wharf complemented the Meringer brothers' design. After just one meeting, the wharf embraced their product and partially funded the project jointly with UCSC. Within six months, the “Santa Cruz Street Lamp” joined the list of sustainable technologies the wharf offers.
“The quick timeline was attributable to good cooperation between all the partners and Mira Bella's responsiveness and expertise to design and install the system,” senior environmental engineer of Ecoshift Consulting, Tiffany Wise-West, said. “Since the GreenWharf Initiative is nearly 100 percent grant funded, it was amazing that Mira Bella donated the materials and time to make the installation a reality.”
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Reach the reporter at ncorr@asu.edu or follow @natalieorr19
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