Shownotes
Episode Summary
CEO and Founder of VoltServer, Stephen Eaves joins the show to share over twenty years of experience in the energy industry and his passion for doing things that have never been done before. Stephen is an expert in battery management, power electronics and energy infrastructure and has fifteen patents issued or pending related to energy storage and power conversion. Today, Harry and Stephen talk about the origin story of VoltServer and the technology behind digital electricity. Stephen shares his thoughts on areas where digital electricity can benefit vertical farming, what the future holds for both industries and what the future holds for high-tech power distribution.
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Key Takeaways
07:14 – Harry welcomes CEO and Founder of VoltServer, Stephen Eaves, to talk about his entrepreneurial background and his passion for doing things that have never been done before
14:40 – Edison, Tesla, and Eaves
19:40 – Mentors who inspired and helped Stephen along his journey
20:48 – Digital electricity and the origin story of VoltServer
25:05 – Consumer and industry response
30:04 – How Stephen got involved in vertical farming
33:58 – Other areas of vertical farming that VoltServer can benefit
38:20 – The reaction of the electricians’ community and what’s on the horizon for VoltServer and digital electricity technology
43:48 – Opportunities Stephen sees in the vertical farming and indoor AgTech space
48:06 – A tough question Stephen has had to ask himself recently and an ask Stephen has for the audience
51:26 – What has Stephen excited about the future of VoltServer
52:23 – Harry thanks Stephen for joining the show and lets listeners know where they can learn more about VoltServer
Tweetable Quotes
“I’ve always had a passion or an obsession to do things that have never been done before - things that are uniquely different.” (12:54) (Stephen)
“For me it’s just a lot of hard work. I wouldn’t say I’m in the category of what they call the flash of genius or flash of inspiration. It’s mainly about looking at problems and finding an un-thought of way to solve a problem that hasn’t been thought of before.” (17:26) (Stephen)
“There’s nothing like digital electricity. There’s nothing out there where you can touch wires and it knows the difference between you and a vacuum cleaner or something like that.” (21:37) (Stephen)
“We see this type of electricity being the next thing in electricity that will displace full AC infrastructure in buildings and probably cities. But it will take a while before it goes to long- distance transmission and things like that.” (29:48) (Stephen)
“The sort of the black eye in vertical farming is the electricity use. And, if electricity is created using carbon-based sources, that’s not good. I think the big movement is going to be as we move towards carbon-free energy sources.” (45:06) (Stephen)
Resources Mentioned
VoltServer – https://voltserver.com/
VoltServer YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzpGyIlBXwD3l8PNRjFj4sw/featured
VoltServer Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/voltserver_indoor_ag/
VoltServer LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/voltserver-inc-/
Stephen’s LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-eaves-47869a33/
Sponsor Info
Cultivatd’s Website – https://cultivatd.com/
Cultivatd’s Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/cultivatdco/
Cultivatd’s Twitter – https://twitter.com/cultivatd
Cultivatd’s Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/cultivatd/
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Mentioned in this episode:
2025 Precision Ag Report by iGrowNews
2025 Precision Ag Report by iGrowNews
Transcripts
$680 million poured into precision ag last year.
Speaker:Autonomous weeding robots dominated, and John Deere made 2 acquisitions in 3
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Speaker:Precision Agriculture Intelligence Report From iGrow News is now
Speaker:available. Get your copy today at
Speaker:igrownews.com/precision. If you are starting a vertical
Speaker:farm and don't know where to begin or which technology would suit your needs,
Speaker:then reach out to the experts at Cultivated. As indoor farm brokers, they
Speaker:help connect you to the right technology and ensure your project is successful.
Speaker:Best of all, their service is free because they work on behalf of their
Speaker:partners. Visit cultivated.com to learn more. And
Speaker:that's spelled C-U-L-T-I-V-A-T-D.com,
Speaker:or click the link in the show notes. It's mainly about like looking at
Speaker:problems and finding sort of an unthought of way to solve a
Speaker:problem that has been thought of before, you know, but sort of
Speaker:starting from this problem perspective. And that, you know, this
Speaker:invention that we call digital electricity really came way back from
Speaker:that first business where we were working with the first battery.
Speaker:When they came out at that time, lithium-ion batteries were
Speaker:Exotically expensive and dangerous. They were volatile.
Speaker:Welcome to the Vertical Farming Podcast, weekly conversations with
Speaker:fascinating CEOs, founders, and agtech visionaries.
Speaker:Join us every week as we dive deep into the world of vertical
Speaker:farming with your host, Harry Duran.
Speaker:Vertical Farming Podcast, Season 5. Welcome back. First-time listeners,
Speaker:you are in the right place if you're looking for a show where we interview
Speaker:fascinating CEOs and founders of the leading vertical farming companies from
Speaker:around the world. I'm your host, Harry Duran. In case you missed last
Speaker:week's guest, we had Max Lossow on. He's the CEO of Agrilution.
Speaker:Max has a vision for bringing the revolutionary concept of CEA
Speaker:to every home and to allow everyone to grow their own nutritious plants. And we
Speaker:had a great discussion about the work he and his co-founder have done to develop
Speaker:his personal vertical farming system. So please check that out if you haven't
Speaker:already. Hey, it's Harry. I'm dropping in for a quick reminder that Indoor
Speaker:AgTech returns to Brooklyn, New York on June 23rd to 24th.
Speaker:And it's a gathering of the world's leading growers, retailers, investors, seed
Speaker:companies, and technology providers to meet, network, and cultivate,
Speaker:pun intended, new commercial relationships. Key themes covered
Speaker:during the 2 days will be regenerating cities, tackling labor shortages,
Speaker:reducing costs and energy usage, plant science and seed optimization,
Speaker:beyond leafy greens, finance and investment, scalability and
Speaker:profitability, communicating with the consumer, and collaboration and partnership.
Speaker:It's gonna be a jam-packed 2 days of content and connection. Can't
Speaker:wait to see you all there. indooragtechnyc.com, and let them know Harry
Speaker:sent you. This week we have a fascinating discussion with
Speaker:Stephen Eaves, the CEO and founder of VoltServer. I was really
Speaker:fascinated when I saw them at Indoor AgCon in Vegas,
Speaker:and I was Grateful for the opportunity to have a deeper dive with
Speaker:Steven about the concept of digital electricity.
Speaker:Steven has over 20 years of experience in the energy industry and has a passion
Speaker:for doing things that have never been done before. He's an expert in battery management,
Speaker:power electronics, and energy infrastructure, and has 15 patents
Speaker:issued or pending related to energy storage and power conversion.
Speaker:In this episode, we talk about the origin story of VoltServer and the technology
Speaker:behind digital electricity. He shares his thoughts on where this
Speaker:can benefit vertical farming and what the future holds for both industries and
Speaker:high-tech power distribution. Really fascinating stuff. Don't forget, if you enjoyed
Speaker:this episode or past episodes, I'd love it if you leave a rating and a
Speaker:review at ratethispodcast.com/vfb. I'd love to
Speaker:read yours out next. Okay, let's jump into this conversation with
Speaker:Stephen. So Stephen Eaves, CEO and
Speaker:founder at VoltServer, thank you for joining me on the Vertical Farming
Speaker:Podcast. Thank you. Where are you calling in
Speaker:from? Where's home? East Greenwich, Rhode Island is where the office is,
Speaker:just outside of Providence, Rhode Island. Okay. Is that— has
Speaker:that been home for you for a while? Are you originally from there? Yeah, I've
Speaker:been in Rhode Island about 25 years. Okay. Yeah, it's a very— yeah, it's just
Speaker:a very pretty area. And what's a
Speaker:little-known fact about the area you're in that most people who don't live there wouldn't
Speaker:know about? Well, let's see, everybody knows it's like, it's the setting for
Speaker:Family Guy. That's what it's famous for. Yeah.
Speaker:Little known facts, well, let's see, that the state food is
Speaker:calamari. Okay. Didn't know that.
Speaker:But how do you enjoy the change of seasons there? It's just
Speaker:about right for me. It's got to change. It doesn't get too
Speaker:cold or too hot. I mean, it does get pretty cold and
Speaker:Rainy certain part of the year. But yeah, yeah, I like it. It's a nice—
Speaker:it's definitely a nice mix. So I first heard
Speaker:about or saw VoltServer mentioned at Indoor AgCon.
Speaker:It was my first vertical farming conference that I attended in Las Vegas earlier this
Speaker:year, and I believe you guys had a booth there. And then I connected with
Speaker:your brother, and, um, I think he was on stage. He
Speaker:spoke at one of the sessions as well. So it was an introduction
Speaker:to some of the interesting things you were doing. And from what I've heard The
Speaker:feedback that you got at the conference was pretty positive. Yeah, it was great. It
Speaker:was off the hook. You know, it was a really good idea to place it
Speaker:with the food business people too. Yeah, the Food Buyers Association.
Speaker:And was that the first conference where you were
Speaker:displaying or you had a booth set up? We'd been in some of the cannabis
Speaker:conferences earlier, which we saw as, you know, it was really
Speaker:an initial market for all this stuff where, you know, the The customers have
Speaker:higher margin levels and things like that, but we've always believed
Speaker:that the food industry was where the long game was in
Speaker:the business. So talk to me a little bit about your background
Speaker:for folks that don't know you. I know you have a background
Speaker:in engineering and that's what you studied and that was part of your
Speaker:earlier businesses as well. So maybe just wind the clock a little
Speaker:bit before we get into the origins of VoltServer, but have you always
Speaker:been fascinated with You know, electrical engineering
Speaker:as a passion? Yeah, it's— I've focused around the energy space probably for the
Speaker:last 25 years through a series of, you know,
Speaker:startups. So this is my third startup business,
Speaker:and the previous one was a lithium-ion battery company
Speaker:for industrial batteries. And then before that was a
Speaker:small company that was sort of a, you know, boutique
Speaker:company for energy management and controls like fuel
Speaker:cells and advanced batteries and things like that. Has this
Speaker:always, since graduating from college, has this always been a passion for
Speaker:you just in terms of like the energy space and obviously working with
Speaker:lithium and now with the work you're doing at VoltServer, just looking for
Speaker:different solutions for some of the challenges and problems we face
Speaker:as a society when it comes to all the energy we do consume
Speaker:on a daily basis? Yeah, I think that's what it is. I mean, it's really
Speaker:sort of maybe not even a passion, an obsession.
Speaker:You know, to do things that are new and that have impact and
Speaker:energy. It just happens that energy is so
Speaker:foundational to everything. So working in that field is very
Speaker:impactful. So I just sort of settled into that naturally,
Speaker:as, you know, folks want to work on things that have some importance, you know,
Speaker:they spend their time. Yeah. So I felt like it was a really good
Speaker:area to spend my time in. What were some of the learnings from some of
Speaker:those earlier companies, the lithium-ion industry? And
Speaker:I imagine there was a lot of on-the-job learning. things as well as you were
Speaker:discovering the ins and outs of that industry. But I'm just curious, what were some
Speaker:of your takeaways from those endeavors? Some of them were positive and some
Speaker:of them not so much. You know, a lot of early
Speaker:learning. I worked with my wife in the first business and
Speaker:she helped a lot for establishing basic things in business
Speaker:like quality management. And, you know, right away
Speaker:we got involved with very high-level projects in that first
Speaker:business, like satellites and military projects and things
Speaker:like that. And we were, we were just coming out of the basement as a
Speaker:business and like managing quality, you know,
Speaker:connecting with these big sort of institutional
Speaker:companies that run programs was, it was pretty
Speaker:fast acceleration for us. Yeah. A lot of sleepless, sleepless
Speaker:nights. Yeah. What were these, some, how big did you build those
Speaker:companies? They were all pretty small. The first one had 12 or
Speaker:13 engineers. Okay. You know, and the next
Speaker:one was 20, 25 folks in the
Speaker:company. And then this company is about currently about 46.
Speaker:So all, you know, I enjoy being in the early stages, you know,
Speaker:of companies. It's a lot of fun. It's not easy. It's
Speaker:definitely not boring. What is it about starting
Speaker:a company that really gets you excited or keeps you
Speaker:motivated? Well, you're always learning, expanding
Speaker:quickly. It feels good. I think certain folks are
Speaker:attuned to it, to be in that undefined space. I mean, everywhere you
Speaker:go is kind of new, which means you're also getting, it's like going through
Speaker:the woods without any path. You're getting scratched up and hit in the face with
Speaker:branches and all that stuff, but it's never boring.
Speaker:And so yeah, it just goes back to trying to, I really have a passion
Speaker:or as I said, an obsession to do things that haven't been done before
Speaker:that are different. Is that a trait that you've had
Speaker:all your life? Is that something that you remember going back to being
Speaker:younger, childhood, or something your family would point to?
Speaker:Yeah, it's always— I mean, I think I always tell the story of my
Speaker:first electrical circuit was just a ball of wire
Speaker:that I found in the basement. I twisted together and I
Speaker:brought it up to my mom, which I have to give her a lot of
Speaker:credit for trust. And I just had her plug it in and it was nighttime.
Speaker:So she plugged it in and it was a big blue flash and all the
Speaker:lights went out in the house. And she was just— I remember just sitting there
Speaker:in the dark. She goes, don't tell your father. That's what I remember
Speaker:from it. Where did you get the idea for that? For twisting the
Speaker:wires together? I actually was influenced by,
Speaker:interestingly enough, a woman. I mean, my aunt was
Speaker:a very early engineer. She was one of the founders of the Society of Women
Speaker:Engineers, which is a huge organization now. And she always She
Speaker:always brought things to me when I was a child that were
Speaker:broken and just threw, you know, threw them in my room and said, well,
Speaker:can you fix this for me? I thought I was doing her a big favor.
Speaker:She was just challenging me to understand the, you know, the
Speaker:equipment. And at that time, there wasn't— there was very little what they
Speaker:call safety agency approvals, like what we know as Underwriters Laboratory or the
Speaker:little marks on the back. Yeah. So back then, things would just catch on
Speaker:fire. like if something was wrong with them, they would just burn, you
Speaker:know, and they were, you know, the materials were flammable. There was no real
Speaker:fusing or controls. Yeah, it was, it was fun. Yeah,
Speaker:that's how I got influenced way back then as a child. Did
Speaker:you end up watching any of the biographies of like Edison or Tesla
Speaker:and then just how, you know, some of the inspired by some of the early
Speaker:inventors as well? Oh yeah, of course. Yeah, going all
Speaker:the way back to like You know, there's a great book called
Speaker:Devil in the White City. It's about the Chicago
Speaker:World's Fair. It was 1897, I think, almost at
Speaker:the end of that, of the 1800s. But that's where it was kind
Speaker:of all decided. You know, it was such a great book. It talked about, you
Speaker:know, Edison and basically Westinghouse and
Speaker:Edison were fighting for, you know, distribution. And
Speaker:this is a lot like that. Yeah. This kind of has aspects of
Speaker:Edison had lower voltage that was considered safe DC power, and
Speaker:Tesla had high voltage that could go long distances.
Speaker:And so Edison lost that contract because of the amount of copper. It
Speaker:was low voltage. So to get it across the park, the
Speaker:fairgrounds, it required a huge amount of copper and expense.
Speaker:So that's kind of where all that happened. Like, so
Speaker:Westinghouse won that contract and that went on from there, they went on and
Speaker:did the Niagara Falls generation plant.
Speaker:Yeah. And that's where it really momentum took off. But back then,
Speaker:there wasn't any things like we have today. There wasn't power
Speaker:electronics or semiconductors, digital signal
Speaker:processing. So, you know, this, you know, the invention
Speaker:that we were talking about today is sort of a fusion
Speaker:of all those things. It has the high voltage characteristics of
Speaker:Tesla, but the safety aspects of Edison in a
Speaker:digital format. So we call it, you know, we call it a third form, you
Speaker:know, AC and then DC. We call this DE, which is, you know,
Speaker:digital electricity. Yeah, that's a, it's a fascinating story. I'm
Speaker:always, I've always been fascinated by Nikola Tesla because I feel like there was something
Speaker:about what he was doing that was so way ahead of his time. And, you
Speaker:know, he unfortunately ended penniless. And
Speaker:then he didn't really get to— he was so ahead of his time, he wasn't
Speaker:able to capitalize. And Edison was the better businessman and, uh, you know, was
Speaker:able to capitalize on his inventions. But I— it's fascinating to think about
Speaker:what's possible and what was possible then, you know, how far
Speaker:ahead of the curve they, you know, someone like Tesla was. And now we're starting
Speaker:to see, you know, and some of the stuff we'll be talking about today, how
Speaker:some of that stuff comes to fruition. But I'm always fascinated to think
Speaker:about, you know, how people are inspired, what inspires people, Like how they
Speaker:come up with these ideas. And I don't know how it is for
Speaker:you, if it's just a process of constant iteration and tweaking and making
Speaker:things better, or if in fact it is truly just
Speaker:flashes of inspiration from some other field that really
Speaker:allow you to think differently about a problem you're trying to solve. Yeah, for
Speaker:me, it's just a lot of work. It's a lot of hard
Speaker:work. Yeah, I wouldn't say I'm in the category of what they call the
Speaker:flash of genius or flash of inspiration. It's mainly
Speaker:about like looking at problems and finding sort of an
Speaker:unthought of way to solve a problem that hasn't been thought of before,
Speaker:but sort of starting from this problem perspective. And that this
Speaker:invention that we call digital electricity really came way back from
Speaker:that first business where we were working with the first batteries.
Speaker:When they came out at that time, lithium-ion batteries were
Speaker:exotically expensive and Dangerous. They were
Speaker:volatile. Yeah, they were catching fire. Yeah. So we were trying to
Speaker:figure out how to, you know, our work back then was how
Speaker:to create arrays of batteries, right? And
Speaker:I mean, that's a whole nother story. Some of the work we did became what
Speaker:you know as the Tesla battery today, which is a massive redundant
Speaker:array of cells. So back then we were working with a company called
Speaker:AC Propulsion, which was this little tiny
Speaker:company that never got a lot of credit for all the great things that happened
Speaker:in electric vehicle development, but they did a lot of it. Alan
Speaker:Cocconi was the principal there and these other guys
Speaker:that I— there won't be enough time to cover that great story, but those guys,
Speaker:whenever I get a chance to give credit, I always try to call out
Speaker:AC Propulsion because all the work they did. They
Speaker:had a vehicle called the T-Zero, which became, you
Speaker:know, as you might know, like Elon Musk wasn't the
Speaker:founder, you know, the original founder of Tesla. You
Speaker:know, I think it was Martin Eberhard is the name of the guy, if I
Speaker:recall correctly. But we, you know, we were working with that
Speaker:very little company, AC Propulsion, and on that
Speaker:project, which that redundant cell technology became my
Speaker:second business. But this invention was trying to figure out how
Speaker:to make electricity safe to touch even at high voltage. So that
Speaker:you could do things like energize roadways and garage
Speaker:floors and things like that. That was the original sort of
Speaker:problem to be solved with this invention. We'll hopefully
Speaker:get back to that as time goes on. It wasn't our first market when we
Speaker:actually launched. You mentioned obviously that company, but were there
Speaker:other folks along the way that you partnered with that
Speaker:mentored you or, you know, that you had good
Speaker:relationships with that helped you and that you can credit for where you are now?
Speaker:Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Like Stanford Orszynski
Speaker:from Ovonic, who he's the inventor— well, he's
Speaker:passed now, but the inventor of the nickel metal hydride battery. That
Speaker:technology's in the Prius now, but he was a very colorful
Speaker:character that worked in early electric vehicle development.
Speaker:And he always showed like in the front office as he came into his
Speaker:building, their first battery worked with his wife, but the first battery
Speaker:was made in a toilet. paper roll, kind of the springy
Speaker:thing, not the cardboard thing, but the springy thing that goes in
Speaker:the wall, that they built their first battery with that. He was
Speaker:quite the character. Yeah. Tom McReedy out of
Speaker:AeroVironment. Okay. Which some of the folks from AC Propulsion
Speaker:came from AeroVironment. Tom Gage was out of there.
Speaker:Great. Yeah. Great people that were very influential to me.
Speaker:So talk to me a little bit about the origin story of VoltServer, because at
Speaker:that point you had started and exited a couple of
Speaker:companies. So we're going back now, 2012,
Speaker:but how did the idea come about and what was the problem you
Speaker:were looking to solve or what was the opening that you saw in the industry
Speaker:that you're looking to fill? Yeah, it was, it originally started, as I mentioned,
Speaker:was to try to go after electric vehicle
Speaker:technology to allow batteries to be extended
Speaker:over long ranges, like on highway surfaces. And we
Speaker:did a lot of work that said if you could effectively charge on the highway
Speaker:and you only had a 100-mile range on the vehicle, you could go almost anywhere
Speaker:in the country without too much trouble. You just had to get back to a
Speaker:highway to recharge. And then it was just, it's
Speaker:a little bit difficult because there's nothing like digital electricity. It's,
Speaker:it, there's nothing out there where you can touch wires and it knows the
Speaker:difference between you and a vacuum cleaner or something, right?
Speaker:If you expose the power wires, you just look like another
Speaker:load on the power wires. There's something called a ground fault interrupter, which is a
Speaker:separate sort of conventional device. I'm talking about the actual
Speaker:power conductors that go to the vacuum cleaner. And a lot of,
Speaker:like a vacuum cleaner today, it doesn't even have a ground wire, it's just 2
Speaker:wires. You can't touch those with regular electricity and have the
Speaker:electricity know you're being electrocuted 'cause you're drawing less power,
Speaker:much less than the vacuum cleaner. Okay. It has no way of feeling. It's dumb.
Speaker:You know, AC power is, as beautiful it is from the time of
Speaker:Tesla, right? It was, it still goes back to those days where they just knew
Speaker:how to make transformers. There's no real intelligence
Speaker:to AC power. The same with fire. You know, it takes very
Speaker:little energy to actually start a fire. The, you know,
Speaker:much less than what popped the circuit breaker. So digital electricity is
Speaker:sending energy, these very small things that we call packets.
Speaker:And you can look at it like water coming out of your faucet. If it's
Speaker:high enough pressure, it's dangerous. And the analogy to
Speaker:pressure in the electrical world is voltage. That's the same, the motive
Speaker:force that moves something is voltage and electricity and pressure
Speaker:in, you know, looking at things like water flow.
Speaker:But if you break that water into billions of little droplets, each little
Speaker:droplet isn't dangerous in itself. It's a small quantity.
Speaker:Our technology takes— does that with
Speaker:electricity, breaks electricity in billions of, of quote, droplets,
Speaker:and then tracks that flow from one place to another. So if it
Speaker:goes into your body, it knows that it went to the wrong place.
Speaker:And that's never been done before. There's nothing out there in the world that can
Speaker:do that. It's uniquely new. And it's a little frustrating
Speaker:because once we get past that part, everybody says, oh, what are you gonna do
Speaker:with it? But I'm like, whoa, hang on a second. This has never been done
Speaker:before. Yeah. You know, now we could talk about what we can do with it,
Speaker:you know, but that's how it works. And it's compatible with data. You know, I
Speaker:have a bunch of it behind me in my— Yeah. On this here. So
Speaker:yeah, the, the, there's a transmitter unit and a receiver and we're
Speaker:tracking, you know, the transmitters are over here and energy is
Speaker:coming in the back from a conventional source like AC. And
Speaker:those that look like computer servers are breaking it up into those
Speaker:packets and sending it overhead in that line. Over into
Speaker:receivers that put it all back together and power something. And in that
Speaker:space in between, it's pure energy. It's
Speaker:uniquely energy where everything in history has been, you know,
Speaker:power is just a manifestation of energy into work over time.
Speaker:In the space between the transmitter and the receiver, it's never
Speaker:manifested into power. It stays in the energy space.
Speaker:And so when you touch it, it doesn't hurt you and it won't start a
Speaker:fire. And then it goes back to regular electricity at the end to
Speaker:power stuff. You know, a lot of the stuff we power is like
Speaker:communications infrastructure and stadiums and, you know,
Speaker:lights and controls in hotel rooms. And then indoor
Speaker:agriculture, as you know, is a really nice application because
Speaker:we put the transmitters in the electrical room back here. And then
Speaker:a bunch of LED lights, thousands of LED lights in these grow
Speaker:facilities. We're sending those packets right into the LEDs because
Speaker:they're naturally DC devices. What was the
Speaker:response as you started to have people test
Speaker:this or really showing people what it is you had developed?
Speaker:Did you understand what the applications would be early on or is it something
Speaker:where you were really discovering
Speaker:yourself what it is you had created or invented and what the possible use
Speaker:cases for it would It definitely took some iteration. I mean, you
Speaker:know, the first place I went after was EVs, but it was too early
Speaker:even back then because the devices need to be compatible. The
Speaker:hard thing that we do is that at the end behind me where we
Speaker:convert back to regular electricity, we have to
Speaker:make the electricity compatible with conventional
Speaker:devices. So it goes back to being AC or low voltage DC.
Speaker:And that compatibility was tough with electric vehicles because they wanted to
Speaker:take AC input and it's hard to convert our stuff.
Speaker:It's expensive to convert it back to AC. AC is the thing we're
Speaker:trying to avoid. And then at the very end, we have to put a big
Speaker:box here to invert it back to AC. Yeah. So it wasn't our
Speaker:first sweet spot, you know, where the communications market
Speaker:already uses DC like the standard in a
Speaker:stadium or a big building is 48 volts DC.
Speaker:And so it was much easier for us to get into that market first. So
Speaker:we started there and then we're just coming back to doing electric
Speaker:vehicles after all these years that we've been in operation now for about
Speaker:9 years since we, we had our first round of funding. And
Speaker:how do you describe it? Did you come up with that term digital electricity
Speaker:right away, or is that something over time that you thought? Because obviously it's a
Speaker:really sexy way to sell what it is that you do that's different than what
Speaker:people might think of normally. Yeah, that was my partner Dan Lowe, the business
Speaker:officer for the company. You know, the technical
Speaker:term or the protocol is called packet energy transfer. He's like, nah,
Speaker:nah, too technical. He said it doesn't roll off the tongue. You know, it's a
Speaker:digital electricity is more sort of marketable. Yeah. And so,
Speaker:yeah, so it was his idea to do digital electricity and it is a much
Speaker:easier word to pronounce. I should say though, you know, the industry
Speaker:We're the inventors of the technology, but there's other folks that are starting to get
Speaker:into the business. And the industry calls fault-managed
Speaker:power for the new standards that are being developed around
Speaker:digital electricity. So we operate, you know, all our
Speaker:stuff is certified. It's what they call listed technology.
Speaker:But the industry, as they got involved, they wanted to build a, you know, sort
Speaker:of a custom standard and custom code section in
Speaker:the National Electric Code for it. And that's kind of what's going on now. And
Speaker:that That turns sort of a smaller bridge into a
Speaker:highway for the industry. So that's kind of a big thing that's
Speaker:happening right now. And what's been the response from the
Speaker:associations and the industries that provide, you know, these, you know,
Speaker:you talk about you turn over any electrical appliance and it's got the
Speaker:stamp on it, right, that most people know. So, and these have
Speaker:been associations that have been around for decades
Speaker:and it feels like this is something that's new to them and it's,
Speaker:innovation in a space that probably doesn't see a lot of innovation,
Speaker:you know, over decades. So I'm wondering what those conversations with folks
Speaker:that create these standards have been like. Yeah, the standards are, they're being
Speaker:developed by folks that want to create digital electricity
Speaker:infrastructure or, you know, ecosystem folks that want to install it or
Speaker:service it, all that kind of stuff, or produce software. I think the
Speaker:appliance, the appliance industry is a really good subject for, you know, full
Speaker:displacement in buildings, things like
Speaker:refrigerators and stoves and things like that. We don't want to convert
Speaker:back to AC and devices that big. I think the appliance
Speaker:manufacturers are okay. They're not resistant in any way, but they just,
Speaker:you know, they need to see tens of thousands of sale,
Speaker:you know, unit sales before they're interested in converting. The indoor
Speaker:agriculture space was different because it's already Wild West. You know,
Speaker:vertical farming is a Wild West environment. Everybody's thinking of all the new
Speaker:ideas now. We're not pushing against infrastructure. So that, you know,
Speaker:we work with lighting manufacturers and they're perfectly
Speaker:compatible with us in terms of, hey, let's try something new. There's no industry
Speaker:resistance, but in the big building applications, as you know,
Speaker:there's things that are called value networks, which are all the
Speaker:web of connections between all the folks that are working in that
Speaker:more conventional industry that might be disrupted or
Speaker:changed. They will adapt over time, but it's always
Speaker:resistive at first. So that's something that takes a lot of
Speaker:education, ecosystem development, marketing. Yeah, it's a
Speaker:multi-decade effort. But yeah, we see this type of
Speaker:electricity just being the next thing in electricity that
Speaker:will displace full AC infrastructure in buildings and
Speaker:probably cities. It'll take a while before it goes to, you know,
Speaker:high, long-distance transmission and things like that. So
Speaker:talk a little bit about your early forays into the
Speaker:vertical farming world. Was that someone from the company that suggested it, or how
Speaker:did you guys get started or get your foot in the door there? Well, you
Speaker:met my brother out at the Ag Show, and he— yeah, we've been working
Speaker:together for a long time. Like, he's an agriculture
Speaker:economist, a professor, and so we've been writing
Speaker:papers together at the sort of nexus of energy and
Speaker:agriculture and things like that. You know, we looked at papers for like you know,
Speaker:turning corn into ethanol and all the, you know, the
Speaker:pluses and minuses of all those different bigger infrastructure
Speaker:changes, you know, industry changes. And this
Speaker:area of indoor agriculture was a paper we originally wrote,
Speaker:I think it was 7 or 8 years ago now, about how
Speaker:the cost of LEDs were coming down and
Speaker:efficiency was going up with the LED manufacturing. And
Speaker:if you go to areas in the country like Canada in northern latitudes, my
Speaker:brother is a professor at Laval University up there. The
Speaker:cost of heating a greenhouse for very little sun that you
Speaker:actually get in that part of the country, there's a trade-off where we actually saw
Speaker:that within 4 or 5 years, it wouldn't make sense anymore
Speaker:to have greenhouses in those latitudes. And, you know, that was
Speaker:kind of what started all of this was these 2 big things coming
Speaker:together. You know, the, you know, VoltServer had a better way to deliver
Speaker:the electricity, which is a huge part of indoor farming. And then with the
Speaker:LED technology migrating to lower costs
Speaker:and more flexibility, it was sort of a, you know, as they call like a
Speaker:perfect storm event that pointed to that direction because
Speaker:we have intellectual property here at VoltServer about sending, as I
Speaker:mentioned, we send those packets directly into the LED array.
Speaker:And so we, we remove the drivers, you know, that on a
Speaker:conventional grow light, there'll be an AC to DC
Speaker:conversion device. They call it a driver that sits on the light
Speaker:and it's the highest failure point for the light. That's the thing that fails first.
Speaker:So with digital electricity, we strip all that stuff off, you know, we eliminate
Speaker:thousands of those drivers and we centralize into cabinets
Speaker:like this that look like server cabinets in the electrical room. And the
Speaker:packets go out into the grow area, but it's also
Speaker:data in there, right? So Digital Electricity is, you know, the safety
Speaker:aspects and energy are combined with data packets. So there's
Speaker:full control in the grow room. What's been the initial reaction? I mean,
Speaker:I meant the way you describe it, I imagine LED manufacturers are really
Speaker:chomping at the bit to test this out and to implement it and to
Speaker:really partner with you or figure out how to design
Speaker:or the new iterations of their LEDs, have them be compatible with what you're
Speaker:developing. And I imagine that they're pretty excited at that opportunity.
Speaker:Yeah, right now we have 6 or 7 of them that have
Speaker:designed the lights. Some of them are deployed now in the field and
Speaker:others are on our test benches here. So we work
Speaker:together, we send them gear and they send us fixtures and we test
Speaker:them for compatibility. So I think there's a pretty good movement in
Speaker:the industry to move away from all those little drivers that are in the grow
Speaker:room. To centralized architectures. And so the timing
Speaker:is just right. Like, it was, it was an amazing conference, the one that you
Speaker:were at, we were at. Just, you could see those, those factors all coming
Speaker:together. There was a time, you know, when we went to ag shows
Speaker:early on that people didn't believe you could grow food with
Speaker:LEDs. There was, there was a huge, you know, I think it was only maybe
Speaker:6 years ago where maybe 70% of growers grew
Speaker:with high-pressure sodium. So, you know, the, the the big hot bulbs
Speaker:in the ceiling, and they just simply didn't believe that you could grow with LEDs.
Speaker:And, you know, that's, that's it, you know, that's infrastructure, you know, that you have
Speaker:embedded paradigms of how people see things working.
Speaker:It takes a while to bring it over. So obviously there's
Speaker:a, a direct correlation between what you're providing with digital
Speaker:electricity and efficiency and output with LEDs. Are there
Speaker:other facets or aspects of vertical farming,
Speaker:not related to LED, any of the equipment where Volt Server could also
Speaker:allow for improvements in functionality or cost? Yeah, because
Speaker:we have that ability to move energy and data, the things like
Speaker:programmable logic controller boxes, all the controls out there,
Speaker:temperature sensing and, you know, controlling, you know,
Speaker:irrigation systems and all of that, all those things have control aspects.
Speaker:So, I mean, in the grow room, we're displacing all of the
Speaker:conventional power distribution and conventional communications
Speaker:lines and going to sort of one common system. We call that digital
Speaker:convergence. It repeats itself in buildings, for
Speaker:example. In buildings, you have
Speaker:electrical infrastructure where big conduits going up through the vertically in
Speaker:the building, and then you have communications infrastructure. And it's not just the
Speaker:equipment, but it's also the skill sets and the people And the software,
Speaker:right? So digital convergence is you have one common platform that has
Speaker:energy and data in it and one common software
Speaker:protocol like an IP protocol.
Speaker:Yeah, because the way you describe it, it almost sounds
Speaker:like a Giga Ethernet connection that's
Speaker:facilitating the communication and the transmission.
Speaker:Instead of energy, it's electricity, which is fascinating to think
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. They, that, that digital transformation's happening
Speaker:everywhere, right? Like they call it, some folks call it IoT. So
Speaker:buildings and factories and farms and all of that,
Speaker:they're digitally transforming to have their basically big
Speaker:computers taking in inputs, processing. And
Speaker:that, that requires the movement of energy and data.
Speaker:And the AC electricity just has, it hasn't evolved in
Speaker:150 years. It's still the same. So this is
Speaker:just part of that evolution. We're one component in
Speaker:the evolution of society towards this digital
Speaker:format, digital transformation. I'm wondering, as
Speaker:with any disruptive technology in an industry that's
Speaker:been around for centuries, if there's an aspect of
Speaker:awakening a sleeping giant. And you talk about all these
Speaker:technologies and services that will be displaced, like the— I
Speaker:think talked about the converter boxes or anything that's in the way
Speaker:of, that's not needed right now because of what VoltServer is doing.
Speaker:And so I'm wondering if there's any rumblings about folks that have been
Speaker:established in the space for a long time hearing what you guys are up to.
Speaker:Yeah, I mean, we're in 1,000 buildings now. So
Speaker:yeah, it's out there. And the effort that you saw, I talked
Speaker:about the standardization, the National Electric Code, that was,
Speaker:All of that happened there. I mean, because there was folks that were
Speaker:in the development groups for standards development that were there to
Speaker:see, you know, to disrupt us, you know, and other folks,
Speaker:you know, and I think that might even been how what started it all. Like,
Speaker:you know, folks that said, what is this crazy stuff? You guys should look at
Speaker:this because there's some funny business going on over there, you know. But I think
Speaker:as people looked at it, they brought in scientists, right? At any one time, we
Speaker:have 3 or 4 PhDs in these standards groups analysis
Speaker:sessions, and they started thinking, wow, okay, this is, this is
Speaker:really different. And as that happened, you know, now
Speaker:we went from a point of view where we had people that were trying to
Speaker:like knock us off a ledge to competitors that want to come in and
Speaker:jump in. They're like, oh yeah, this does look interesting. And that start— started
Speaker:tilting over time where now the momentum is a bunch of folks that
Speaker:really see it as a new industry. And so our job is to
Speaker:cooperate where we can because the pie gets bigger, right? It
Speaker:actually will help us because other competitors
Speaker:give second sources where big building owners and big projects, they don't want to
Speaker:be stuck with a unique company. So there's good aspects to
Speaker:it. Our job now is just to stay as the, at the front, you know,
Speaker:we're the, we're the first movers in the industry. So from a
Speaker:management perspective, we want to stay in that position. Yeah, it makes a lot of
Speaker:sense. It definitely would seem to have a target on you now that everyone has
Speaker:seen this new industry that's rising, but I think you definitely have first mover
Speaker:status. Are there patents associated with the technology you've created as well?
Speaker:Yeah, many patents. And I want to throw one thing in, is that the
Speaker:electricians community, they've been incredibly
Speaker:professional. You know, like a lot of folks made sort of jokes around the electricians
Speaker:are going to come around and, you know, would steal pipes or something like that.
Speaker:They, for one thing, a lot of 'em are geeks like us. They were, they
Speaker:were, they wanna see the next thing. And the whole concept is kind of silly.
Speaker:Like digital electricity is a new type of tool for electricians.
Speaker:And it, it's almost like an electrician saying, hey, if you gimme a better wrench,
Speaker:I'm not gonna use that wrench because, you know, I wanna spend more labor
Speaker:time turning screws. You know, no, they're, they're a business like any
Speaker:other business. They, they look for new ways and they're also
Speaker:enamored with new technology. So they've been gentlemen. You know, the whole
Speaker:industry that from my exposure has been nothing but good
Speaker:exposure with the electricians community. So
Speaker:most of our systems are, they, you know, they're installed by electrician
Speaker:firms. So I just wanted to throw it out there. Yeah,
Speaker:that's nice of you to shout them out as well, because that is true. They
Speaker:are the front lines. And that makes me think of another question. Are you
Speaker:seeing applications in housing and
Speaker:buildings yet, or is it still too early? Or this would seem
Speaker:like you talk about IoT, like house of the future, if you're gonna have something
Speaker:that's future forward and somewhat future-proof, this would
Speaker:seem like the technology to be using. Yeah, depending on the
Speaker:flavor of the current volt— the current digital electricity is
Speaker:what's called a Class 2 power circuit. And
Speaker:that has its pathway, as I mentioned, the bridge and the National
Speaker:Electric Code that can install in a lot of places. Now,
Speaker:the big bridge that we're building is right now
Speaker:focused on commercial and also apartment buildings like MDUs, as
Speaker:they call it. That there wasn't enough time in this
Speaker:current code, the 2023 electric code, to get in
Speaker:residential. People wanted to understand it a bit more before
Speaker:they built the big bridge into residential uses. But I think that will
Speaker:come, you know, every couple years the code cycle goes through.
Speaker:And so I think residential will come after folks get
Speaker:comfortable with it in a big way in commercial. What are some of the
Speaker:applications that you can anticipate?
Speaker:Obviously, you're seeing how folks are applying the technology now.
Speaker:And we talked about LEDs, and we talked about some of the things
Speaker:where people are putting it into active use today. But
Speaker:sometimes you would probably be surprised if you look forward 5 years
Speaker:and saying, wow, I didn't realize that this technology could be used for this. And
Speaker:so just kind of have your crystal ball in front of you. you
Speaker:think of applications that, you know, we may not even be able to
Speaker:dream about, but because of the nature of the technology, it would lend
Speaker:itself well to exploration in other industries? Yeah, I have a
Speaker:couple easy ones, but going to what you said, it is a new—
Speaker:digital electricity is a type of platform that industries form around,
Speaker:and that's kind of the fun of it, is that you don't know what happens.
Speaker:All of a sudden you see all these new things happen. Communication is the same
Speaker:way. When you talk about 5G, everybody wonders, Oh, we have all this
Speaker:bandwidth. What are we going to do with it? We don't have anything to do
Speaker:with it. All of a sudden something happens. It's that
Speaker:society expands exponentially from a technology standpoint. It's
Speaker:because of all those unknown things. But for the easy ones for me
Speaker:that I see for us coming up next is probably things like
Speaker:data centers and electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
Speaker:Because it installs very easy at high power levels
Speaker:and it can go in Like you can slot it into concrete where normally
Speaker:you have to dig down way deep under the ground to install
Speaker:electricity. But this stuff, because it's inherently safe, you know,
Speaker:you don't need all those like conduit, you know, you're seeing on the ceiling
Speaker:those metal pipes, you know, conventional electricity is inherently
Speaker:dangerous. So it's like a wild animal. And a lot of the work goes into
Speaker:containing that animal where you can see in the, in the green
Speaker:wires here, digital electricity wires, there's no metal cage around it.
Speaker:The cages make it expensive. Like containing
Speaker:a lion is much more expensive than containing a cat.
Speaker:Yeah. So that's the differential that makes it, from an
Speaker:economic standpoint, that makes it sell. Once you have that sort of
Speaker:flexibility, things like if you look like building infrastructure,
Speaker:being able to use integrated building components like
Speaker:floor baseboards that have integrated electricity, or even things like those
Speaker:3D-printed homes, where, you know, they could print wires
Speaker:with this stuff inside the concrete instead of running
Speaker:conventional wire, you know. And that, that's the kind of stuff you can
Speaker:do. It doesn't have the ability to start fires anymore if you make a mistake
Speaker:or hurt people, even when it's carrying really high power. Yeah,
Speaker:I think if we have this conversation in 2 to 3 years, I think we're
Speaker:going to be pleasantly surprised by some of the innovation that's happened in this
Speaker:space and the people who have been been able to think outside of the box
Speaker:because they don't have the constraints of trying to tame this, you know, this
Speaker:wild animal that is electricity and live power and
Speaker:the flexibility you'll have. You know, this vision we have of driving cars on the
Speaker:highway and having them recharge as they're driving along the highway and
Speaker:quick recharging of electric vehicles, it's something that, you know, we've
Speaker:dreamed about as a future. But I think with now you can see, you can
Speaker:see the how that's possible with technology like this. Yeah,
Speaker:that's right. I'm curious what your thoughts are about what's been happening in
Speaker:the vertical farming space, in indoor ag, and, and just, you
Speaker:know, separate from the functionality and, and
Speaker:the efficiencies you're providing with VoltServer, what's been your perspective, not
Speaker:traditionally coming from this industry, how you've seen it and, you know, the
Speaker:opportunities that you're seeing in the industry itself, because it itself is growing
Speaker:at a pretty fast pace as well. Yeah. I mean, we're a big believer
Speaker:in vertical farming. It's transformational. The, you know,
Speaker:as you know, almost everything about it is good.
Speaker:I mean, it, you most right now, most fertilizer that gets
Speaker:distributed into a field disappears into the ground and shows
Speaker:up in groundwater. And then that ends up causing, you know, fish
Speaker:kills and dead zones and, you know, Not to
Speaker:mention pesticides. Moving on to that, right? Like, you know,
Speaker:different pesticides get involved with groundwater. You have all sorts of
Speaker:side effects from not just human effects from eating the stuff,
Speaker:but the pesticides getting into water streams and the ecosystem.
Speaker:And then you have water use. If you throw that on, like indoor
Speaker:farming or vertical farming recycles water and
Speaker:land use is much less. So it all comes down to where we are, which
Speaker:is energy. You know, the, the, the, the sort of
Speaker:black eye in vertical farming is the electricity use. And if that electricity
Speaker:is created using carbon-based sources, it's
Speaker:not good. You know, it's burning a lot more, is creating a lot more carbon.
Speaker:So I think the big movement is gonna be things like as we move towards
Speaker:carbon-free energy sources. And, and if you go to Canada, like,
Speaker:you know, one of our cannabis installations in Canada is, is hydropower.
Speaker:So it, it, it's pretty good up there in terms of renewable.
Speaker:And we have a big Florida installation, Hardy Fresh, that is
Speaker:solar-based. So they have the strangest thing you can imagine. You
Speaker:have this closed warehouse-like building that no
Speaker:sun can get into it. They have a whole huge solar
Speaker:array outside creating electricity. You know,
Speaker:it's wild to see, but that was to get the carbon content
Speaker:down. on the facility. Because the reason they do that, the reason
Speaker:why that's so weird is because it's— it's— the sun is not free.
Speaker:It's not cheap as people imagine it. The sun is very expensive to
Speaker:manage. And in a greenhouse, the sun gets in the greenhouse and in the summer
Speaker:it gets too hot. And then you open the windows, the bugs get in. It
Speaker:causes all sorts of insecurity on the, on the part of the farmer of
Speaker:not knowing what's gonna happen next. And so that drove to
Speaker:having better control, you know, very, very controlled food
Speaker:production year round, right? And during
Speaker:COVID-19, it accelerated because people got threatened
Speaker:by food security. During COVID-19, there was an increased
Speaker:focus on health. And another big one was because outdoor
Speaker:farming uses migrant labor. With the borders closing down, it
Speaker:caused huge disruptions in food supply where the indoor farms
Speaker:like the Hearty Fresh facility I was telling you about, they have, they have regular
Speaker:employees that come in every day, right? And They get paid to come in
Speaker:on a regular basis, so it's stable. So it wasn't disrupted
Speaker:by the COVID event as a lot of the other sources for food.
Speaker:Yeah, it's been an interesting time for me to launch the
Speaker:show because I launched in the middle of COVID and it sort of brought an
Speaker:awareness to me learning about the industry, but also realizing
Speaker:the importance of local access to fresh
Speaker:food, the concept of food deserts. and just how
Speaker:much the supply chain was really affected by what happened during
Speaker:COVID and an awareness to people who may not have understood
Speaker:just how far your produce needs to travel sometimes to
Speaker:get to your table. And, it's one of those little-known secrets, dirty little
Speaker:secrets of farming itself, which I think have come to light. And so,
Speaker:any opportunities to improve it from an efficiency
Speaker:standpoint or cost standpoint are certainly going to be welcome. And, to your point,
Speaker:yes, the one little dark mark on vertical farming is the
Speaker:fact that it is energy intensive, and this helps to solve that problem.
Speaker:So I think that's— I would imagine that the technology is being met with open
Speaker:arms from a lot of folks in the vertical farming industry. Yeah, it's really exciting
Speaker:for us, for sure. A couple questions as we wrap up. What's
Speaker:a hard question you've had to ask yourself recently? A lot for us
Speaker:is about our path to scale from a business. A lot of my, you know,
Speaker:I love the technical side, of the business, but I'm also the
Speaker:CEO. That means that I, from a startup perspective, it really kind
Speaker:of hit me. It means chief executive officer,
Speaker:and that means paper. It's a lot of office work.
Speaker:So a lot of my worries and challenges are about scaling.
Speaker:There's so many different markets. Electricity is
Speaker:generic, which makes it beautiful. That's the abstraction that it
Speaker:provides. But it means it can go into just about anywhere, and it
Speaker:is. So a lot of my work is strategic on
Speaker:how to grow the company quickly, but not too quickly so we burn the
Speaker:company out. All that kind of stuff is the day-to-day stuff that
Speaker:are the challenges for me. But I love the work. I mean, what am I
Speaker:going to do? How can I complain? Somebody shot me with a lightning bolt.
Speaker:Given the audience and the fact that this is focused on
Speaker:companies, people who are interested in the vertical farming
Speaker:industry, and people who work in the industry itself, is there an
Speaker:ask that you have for this audience? Yeah, I think the
Speaker:industry is evolving. You know, I
Speaker:venture to say a lot of it started from cannabis, you know, and it
Speaker:started from folks that were in the black market, and it's very hard
Speaker:to cooperate. And I think the big
Speaker:challenge for everyone in vertical farming now is sort of a
Speaker:scientific approach. You know, it's, it's one of the
Speaker:most interesting spaces I've ever worked in, this kind of, this sort of
Speaker:cross-section of biology and technology
Speaker:and all of that and purpose, right? But it's very easy to get off
Speaker:track because things are changing in 9 different ways all the
Speaker:time. And vertical farming, what I find to be
Speaker:one of the most unique things about it is that, you know, folks talk about
Speaker:how corn used to be this big, you know, when it was first in the
Speaker:wild. And over hundreds of years, people,
Speaker:you know, they cultivated it into what it is now. That's gonna
Speaker:accelerate now because you could never hold things constant before
Speaker:like you can in vertical farming. Now you can hold all the, you know, the
Speaker:temperature, the humidity, right? Light levels, right?
Speaker:Things that get into the room like insects can be controlled now. And then
Speaker:you could tweak one thing and see what's gonna happen. And
Speaker:that's going to mean it's going to be an exponential
Speaker:increase in the amount of research and
Speaker:findings that we have in the industry because of that. It's really,
Speaker:really exciting. But folks need to cooperate,
Speaker:you know, share research and stuff like that. We're the same, you know,
Speaker:we're commercial. So you want to hide, you know, you want to hide your secrets,
Speaker:but then cooperation has always been the way that, that's made us
Speaker:successful. As a society. So I'm really excited to
Speaker:see how it plays out. Yeah, that's a— that's an important thing to highlight, and
Speaker:I'm glad you mentioned it because it's something that I've seen. And in the
Speaker:course of these conversations, it's been consistent that, you know,
Speaker:to a person that's come on the show just talking about the importance of working
Speaker:together, developing open standards. And, and I think it's
Speaker:such a young industry that there are a lot of opportunities to learn from
Speaker:each other. And so I'm glad you continue to bring that up. Can you talk
Speaker:a little bit about the roadmap, what you have planned out to the extent that
Speaker:you can talk about anything that's, you know, 3 years is probably too
Speaker:long in this industry. So for the next 12 months, what has you excited about
Speaker:what you're working on at VoltServer? Yeah, the big releases coming up for us is
Speaker:we have a new, more optimized transmitter unit that
Speaker:is more power dense and lower cost for the customer,
Speaker:software development for managing the grow areas and things like
Speaker:that. And then And probably what we call inline communications, which
Speaker:is more advancements in that communication component of the
Speaker:pack. I talk about this energy packet thing as a little, as what's called
Speaker:an energy component and a data component. And we're always trying to pack more
Speaker:functionality in moving data and the offset of moving
Speaker:energy and data at the same time. So we're gonna be working on a lot
Speaker:of sensors and controls and sort of APIs for
Speaker:for ecosystem partners. That's the big things going on with
Speaker:AgEco. Oh, well, Stephen, I appreciate you making
Speaker:time to come on the show. And I think it was really intriguing for me
Speaker:when I saw it at the conference and had an opportunity to
Speaker:chat with your brother about it and just learn more about it. And it just
Speaker:feels like it's something that's groundbreaking and innovative. And I want to
Speaker:applaud you and the team for all the innovations you've created in this
Speaker:space and for being pioneers in this creation of
Speaker:digital electricity, which for the vertical farming industry, I think is gonna be something that
Speaker:was— it's needed for it to grow and to move
Speaker:and to sort of mature into its next phase. So it's gonna be exciting
Speaker:to see what's on the horizon. If folks wanna learn more,
Speaker:they can go to voltserver.com. Any other place you wanna send them if they wanna
Speaker:connect with you or the team? Oh no, that's great. They'll find everything
Speaker:there. Okay. Well, thanks again for your time. It was really
Speaker:interesting to hear the backstory and the origin story of how everything got started. So
Speaker:I appreciate you sharing that. Thanks, Harry. It was a pleasure talking to you. Thanks
Speaker:again to Stephen for coming on the show and sharing his story. As
Speaker:always, I appreciate the time that my guests spend with me, and I don't take
Speaker:that lightly. And I appreciate you for listening and all the
Speaker:feedback we've been getting on the show. Don't forget, leave us a rating and review
Speaker:at ratethispodcast.com/vfp if you haven't done so already.
Speaker:I love reading those out on future episodes. Special thanks Thanks to our
Speaker:season 5 title sponsor Cultivated. If you are looking for a vertical farm and don't
Speaker:know where to start or which technology would suit your needs, reach out to them
Speaker:today. Best of all, their service is free because they work on behalf of their
Speaker:partners. Learn more at cultivated.com, and that's spelled C-U-L-T-I-V-A-T-D.com.
Speaker:Just leave out that last E. If you're hearing this in the last week of
Speaker:June 2022, it's likely that I'm on a plane
Speaker:to Indoor AgTech NYC, indooragtechnyc.com.
Speaker:Looking forward to meeting a lot of previous guests and new friends at the
Speaker:conference in New York City, in Brooklyn. Podcast production and marketing provided by
Speaker:Fullcast. Learn more at fullcast.co about how a podcast may
Speaker:be helpful for your brand and business. Speaking of
Speaker:conferences, tune in next week for my conversation with Brian Sullivan, the
Speaker:CEO of Indoor AgCon. Thanks for all you
Speaker:do to support the show, and until we meet again, here's to your Thanks for
Speaker:listening. To read the full show notes for this episode, which includes
Speaker:any links mentioned in the episode, as well as a full show transcription,
Speaker:visit verticalfarmingpodcast.com. There, you can
Speaker:sign up for our email list to be notified when new episodes are
Speaker:published.
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