Boylston Entrepreneur Moves From Fried Food To Energy | Inventor hopes oil can power local restaurants
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James Peret, Owl Power Co. of Boylston, hopes to take grease and make energy for restaurants.
When James Peret of Boylston sees a vat of used cooking oil at a restaurant, he sees more than a greasy mess.
He sees a business opportunity.
Peret, co-founder of Owl Power Co., has created a system — cleverly named Vegawatt — to reuse cooking oil to provide restaurants electricity.
Owl Power has raised “family and friend” money and is now looking to raise a small seed round of $250,000 to gain momentum.
Change In Direction
The first trials of Vegawatt will begin in September and Peret hopes to begin production by early 2009.
But Peret wasn’t always planning on creating a system to produce electricity for restaurants. He initially had his sights set on a biofuel car that would re-use cooking oil.
“I was looking into making a grease car, but the time investment is enormous,” said Peret. “You have to have a garage full of equipment. It may be free in terms of not having to pay the restaurant for oil, but you can’t just pull up and put in your car.”
Peret then thought about developing a system that would allow a user to take the vegetable oil directly from the restaurant into a car where the oil would be refined as the car was driven. Once it was refined, it would be shunted into the system to be used.
“After all that effort, what’s to convince the restaurant to give the oil to you and not to the next guy who shows up with a grease car?”Peret said.
Peret believed that it was important to come up with a product that would give restaurant owners an incentive to use it and the Vegawatt cogeneration system was born.
“Spinning tires is a lot like spinning magnets and you can produce electricity and hot water. Restaurants use a lot of electricity, but now they have a financial incentive to put the oil into their system…” Peret said.
Peret claims he has struck deals with several restaurants to try the system out once it is in production, which he hopes will be at the start of 2009.
Restaurants using the system can save between $800 and $1,200 a month. He plans to offer a lease of $400 a month, which includes any necessary servicing, or $17,500 to buy it. Peret estimates the yearly savings for a restaurant would be $10,000.
The unit, which is about the size of a refrigerator, is placed outside the building the same way central air conditioning units often are. It hooks up through one electrical cable to the electric system and there is also a hot water feed and return system. The hot water heater does not have to work as hard because the water has already been partially heated by the system.
Before founding Owl Power, Peret was a product development engineer for Insight Product Development LLC, a product design and development company, where he was named inventor on three utility patents. Peret also has experience with a number of startup companies.
WBJ Web Partners
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