Disruptive Solar Innovation and Urban Community Benefits
Real estate available for public solar collection in dense urban space is expensive and rare, while outdoor sports stadiums located in urban areas exist in every major city across the country, empty most of the year and returning no value. My proprietary technology addresses a key component of this situation and highlights the development of these vast urban spaces to lower costs to owners and serve neighbors, the currently underserved public.
Stadiums are constructed using considerable public funding and return few benefits to these urban, local communities, communities often challenged by high levels of unemployment with few resources available for job training and workforce development and with poor to no availability of lower electricity costs from community based solar power programs.
As climate issues increase the desire for more resilient infrastructure, sports stadiums offer very robust characteristics for weather emergencies. The addition of solar powered energy collection assures continuous operations for extended periods of time, without reliance on diesel or gas powered on site generators which are often poorly maintained and subject to frequent mechanical malfunction over time. For the community on site resiliency emergency facilities are envisioned for local medical emergencies (oxygen, dialysis, field surgery) as well as first responder support (kitchen, beds and showers.)
Quality solar panels are now being designed to last for 30+ years, and quality battery technology makes sustainability and resiliency easy. As a network news cameraman I have covered a lot of natural and man made disasters, including the 2004/05 Tsunami in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Kerala, India and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, where I witnessed the evacuation of the Superdome in New Orleans (where generators were threatened by rising floodwaters and lack of fuel.)
Installing high quality embedded photovoltaics into sports stadium seating takes advantage of this undervalued space while seats are empty, creating new revenue streams to lower costs by creating megawatts of power in these large 40,000 plus outdoor seating arenas, seats that not only pay for themselves while empty, but also directly support and serve the community.
Advancing the solution has been a key goal and driver of research on all aspects of success and steps necessary for Sunflower Seating, from the design of an individual unit, understanding the broad scope of the project market, identifying stakeholders and key components necessary for success, determining the initial scope of field testing, estimating the return on investment, the costs of development, tax credits and depreciation, and the various future manufacturing processes.
We do see with the World Cup in Qatar the Lusail Stadium is more energy efficient, uses about 40% less water, and lowers carbon energy, but unfortunately there is not much solar on the building itself, it will be repurposed. And as opposed to stadiums that don’t see much use after major events like the Olympics, University and Professional sports teams and owners draw crowds on a regular basis making for more economical use of such stadiums, also reducing travel expenses (another carbon offset.)
Urban spaces large enough to enable large micro grid scale solar applications are rare and expensive but photovoltaic modules embedded in sports stadium seating take advantage of the vast free real estate inside outdoor sports stadiums (while seats are empty and producing no revenue.) With each unit able to produce 50-75 watts considerable power (a megawatt per 20,000 seats) can generate revenue, reduce costs, create jobs, opportunities and create resilient local community assets for use in emergencies (field kitchen/hospital type services for locals, bunks and showers for first responders, etc.).
We will be state of the art as commercially relevant materials enable the development of a vast new market. This original innovation describes the creation of an as yet untapped market with serious potential cost saving for sports stadiums domestically and around the world.
Sunflower Seating creates this state of the art technology start up based on “off the shelf technology” for lower cost field testing. That data will drive the ultimate design of the individual modules for the marketplace and is to be developed in our framework.
The innovations described create unique opportunities to create untapped value, not just for stadium owners, but also for often undervalued communities that are on the periphery of large stadiums, where public funding used to build stadiums often does not generally ever return support to the local community.
We will confirm the route to a field test production with cooperation from a small photovoltaic (pv) module production manufacturer, like Powerfilm Solar, a US based solar materials manufacturing company in Ames, Iowa or perhaps with Activesurfaces.xyz as they are currently promoting “solar for any surface” thin film pv and are a Clean Tech finalist in the Forge non profit start up assistance group. Alternatively we may set up a small production line in Brooklyn NewYork, to produce the limited number of modules we need for testing.
Since first conceived in 2015, initial research suggested no patents had been granted for this technology of embedded photovoltaics in seating, a thorough and comprehensive prior art search in 2017 suggested the route to a patent filing was clear, an appropriate series of drawings for the application were conceived and executed such that a well qualified patent attorney secured the patent in 2018.
Some other milestones:
2016: Contact Irwin Seating, and receive 2 sets of stadium seats for early prototype from Director ofMarketing, Bill MacLeod (Yankee Stadium seating / MetLife seating) a top 10 manufacturer: “Nobody has talked to us about this” NDA signed.
2016: Hire patent attorney, got drawings completed 2016
Visit Prism Solar in NY, maker of bifacial panels meet CEO who liked concept: market research
2017: Contact with Q Solar, attend Consumer Electronics Show to meet them in Las Vegas, they are no longer, but more market research.
2017: Deep prior art Patent search completed by IP expert
2018: Patent granted / discussion with Joshua Pearce PhD (leader in photovoltaics field / grad student mentor)
2019: Ordered Maxeon Cells, learn to solder at MakerspaceNYC (granted free workspace)
2019: Create first rough prototype for personal validation of concept, using copper backed flexible cells
2021: Continue work at MakerspaceNYC
2023: Discussions with PowerFilm Solar, Brooklyn Solarworks, Prism Solar.
2024: Receive Sunpower flexible 50 watt module, receive 24 Watt flexible Soltronix module
2024: Meet Head of Strategy Innventure’s Dr. John Scott.
Sunflower Seating has continuously watched the solar photovoltaic market space, sports stadium developments, and determined that the Maxeon cells currently made in flexible small modules (off the shelf tech.) would serve the development of the project by use in the 200 unit field testing program in less than a year. All very limited funds to date have been contributed by the inventor and patent holder Mark Walker. Mark has relied on specialists in their field to advance the positive nature of this large project.
Having working internationally with large ngo’s and understanding the obvious impact of partners who have resources and deep experience, in any shape or form, determines the large scale of success required; adaptability, creativity, decisiveness, passion, and resourcefulness are required in this case; the creation of a new global marketplace for sustainable US manufacturing.
This is only possible with US labs and University co-ordination, initial funding of such projects provide credibility and gate keepers open the gates.
There are millions of empty sports stadium seats available as free real estate for small pv modules around the world and they will create many megawatts of power, provide valued benefits to the local communities in their neighborhoods through workforce development and resilient emergency centers, for use in power outages. We will make stadium owners and fans happy too!
There is currently no team, only private advisors. However, diversity will become a driving force in the community benefits program envisioned, as workforce development and community colleges converge for training solar power professionals. Post Graduate and Graduate students & lab partners will be represented and actually transition as developed to working for the project, given the lack of qualified skilled talent in the marketplace.
The business opportunities are large. Sports stadiums are always trying to improve the client experience and incorporating green initiatives in their planning, the evidence is everywhere.
Costs and returns are attractive, as are carbon credits and several other tax credits, tax deductions, depreciation, write downs, etc. & will play a large role. Community engagement is key for our program in urban areas, as well as other areas where large outdoor venues exist, as well as university and college football stadiums. Michael Korengold recently of Private Credit Solutions recently discussed the feasibility of financial support “Impact Credit” where tax credits are used as collateral, as with this project, Sunflower Seating, nearly all tax credits available total 60% of costs, not including carbon credits and depreciation. This is remarkable.
This structure and ability to execute makes a lot of sense to anyone who wants to improve the future in all metrics (savings, stable prices, wages, manufacturing, domestic hardware, fossil fuel based communities, B to B targeted sales, workforce development) described by this project. Follow-on funding becomes available once the project’s credibility is established.
We have a great idea, it is impactful as it creates a new international market for small easily produced flexible photovolatic modules which enable large outdoor venues to lower costs, train workers, create qualified professionals, while addressing community solar in low income neighborhoods surrounding publicly funded urban stadiums. Technically this real estate is free to exploit, saving development & install costs.
The project already has IP protection, a 2018 patent. Additional talent and resources are always critical to pre-seed startups as velocity is required.
The seats used in the early concept prototype were donated by Irwin Seating, one of the top ten sports stadium seating companies in the US who were interested in the development of this technology. This straightforward hardware technology is creating a “blue ocean “hardware and software technology market, and this space is ours alone.
Mark Walker’s grant writing to the DOE, ambitions, cost constraints, personal labor input, purchases of pv cells, and personally attaching flexible Maxeon cells to an Irwin Stadium seat show a strong commitment to accelerated development based on solid functionality and field data.
The company does need to continue to assemble a tight small team of experts, write more grants and create early investors who can enable a bright successful future.
With a budget of $75,000 (600) flexible copper backed solar modules (9 cells each or 18 1/2 cells) could be installed on existing seats / infrastructure, in a sports stadium; 3 modules per unit, for placement on the seat, the seat back front, and seat back rear and would produce
50+ Watts each. (In the marketplace 20 thousand seats would create roughly a Megawatt of power.)
These modules would be for the demonstration only. The data collected, experience gained, the team involved, the labs and institutions involved, would all have significant roles to play in the development of SunflowerSeating’s finished product; suitable for mass production.
The study would enable an understanding of optimal seat design (tilt / folding armrest, wiring, etc), location, solar azimuth and total solar hours available, shading issues, wiring technology, and many other variables.
This data collection opportunity would be leveraged so that the project could be submitted to national labs and university affiliates, formalizing relationships and beginning studies for development of optimal photovoltaic technologies, materials studies, and for example supporting and gaining insights from specific post and graduate students researching pv emerging tech, creating our own skilled workforce in advance of a successful roll out.
The administrator has signed an NDA with a company for co-mentorship.
Research will suggest the best production methods in use and which best materials will make the most sense to mass produce domestically; as production methods are being developed all over the world at a rapid pace, so taking time to select the best functionality for our purposes is best resolved with targeted research and collaboration with an expert team.
A demonstration day would be based on the developed unit prototypes and previously collected data, and the photovoltaic sport seats proven ability to resilience, creating a local distributed power system grid in tandem with the ability to power safe batteries. Ideal pilot partners would be a Federal DOE national lab, a professional sports stadium and a university level institution with a post and graduate level photovoltaics emphasis, a domestic manufacturer of bifacial modules, preferably all at the same time. Graduate department head Joshua Pearce PhD (& PV materials expert) has expressed an interest in consulting and providing students for more research. These practices would reduce risk and allow marketing efforts to proceed across the sports stadium market and communications with architecture companies such as Populous.
Funding would support creation of US manufacturing of high quality units for use in large stadiums of over 40,000 seats in the US (136 Stadiums) and, internationally over 17 Million sports stadiums seats.
This is our new market, in order to capture this opportunity we need to be first out of the gate, don’t you agree?
Real estate for public solar collection in dense urban space is expensive and rare, while outdoor sports stadiums located in urban areas exist in every major city across the country, empty most of the year, returning no value, my proprietary technology addresses a key component of this situation and highlights the development of these vast urban spaces to lower costs to owners and their neighbors, the underserved public.
Stadiums are constructed using considerable public funding and return few benefits to local surrounding communities, communities often challenged by high levels of unemployment with few resources available for job training and workforce development and with poor to no availability of lower electricity costs from community based solar power programs.
As climate issues increase the desire for more resilient infrastructure, sports stadiums offer very robust characteristics for weather emergencies. The addition of solar powered energy collection assures continuous operations indefinitely, without reliance on diesel or gas powered on site generators which are often poorly maintained and subject to mechanical malfunction over time. On site resiliency emergency facilities are envisioned for local medical emergencies (oxygen, dialysis, field surgery) as well as first responder support (beds and showers.)
Quality solar panels are now being designed to last for 30+ years, and quality battery technology makes sustainability and resiliency easy. As a network news cameraman I have covered a lot of natural and man made disasters, including the 04/05 Tsunami in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Kerala, India and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, where I witnessed the evacuation of the Superdome in New Orlean (where generators failed within 24 hours.) Installing high quality embedded photovoltaics into sports stadium seating takes advantage of this undervalued space while seats are empty, creating a new revenue stream to lower costs by creating megawatts of power in these large 40,000 plus outdoor seating arenas. Seats that not only pay for themselves while empty but also support and serve the community.
We will be state of the art as commercially relevant materials enable the development of our market. This original innovation describes the creation of an as yet untapped value with vast potential cost saving for sports stadiums domestically and around the world.
It creates this state of the art technology based on “off the shelf technology” for lower cost field testing. That data will drive the ultimate design of the individual modules for the marketplace and is to be developed in our framework.
We will confirm the route to a field test production with cooperation with a small pv module production manufacturer, like Powerfilm Solar, a US based solar materials manufacturing company in Ames, Iowa.
Or perhaps with Activesurfaces.xyz as they are currently promoting “solar for any surface” thin film pv and are a Clean Tech finalist in the Forge non profit start up assistance group.
Alternatively we may possibly set up a small production line in Brooklyn NY to produce the limited number of modules we need for testing.
Since first conceived in 2015, initial research suggested no patents had been granted for this technology embedded pv in seating, a thorough and comprehensive prior art search in 2017 suggested the route to a patent filing, an appropriate series of drawings for the application were conceived and executed such that a well qualified patent attorney secured the patent in
2018. Some other milestones:
2016: Contact Irwin Seating, receive 2 sets of stadium seats for early prototype from Director of
Marketing, Bill MacLeod (Yankee Stadium seating / MetLife seating) a top 10 manufacturer: “Nobody has talked to us about this” NDA signed.
2016: Hire patent attorney, get drawings completed 2016: Visit Prism Solar in NY, maker of bifacial panels meet CEO who liked concept: market research
2017: Contact with Q Solar, attend Consumer Electronics Show to meet them in Las Vegas, they are no longer, market research.
2017: Deep prior art Patent search completed by IP expert
2018: Patent granted / discussion with Joshua Pearce PhD (leader in photovoltaics field / grad student mentor)
2019: Order Maxeon Cells, learn to solder at MakerspaceNYC (granted free workspace)
2019: Create first rough prototype for personal validation of concept, using copper backed flexible cells
2021: Continue work at MakerspaceNYC
2023: Discussions with PowerFilm Solar, Brooklyn Solarworks
2024: Receive Sunpower flexible 50 watt module, receive 24 Watt flexible Soltronix module
2024: Meet Head of Strategy Innventure’s Dr. John Scott.
SunflowerSeating has continuously watched the solar pv market space, sports stadium developments, and determined that the Maxeon cells currently made in flexible small modules (off the shelf tech.) would serve the development of the project by use in the 200 unit field testing program in less than a year. All very limited funds to date have been contributed by the inventor and patent holder Mark Walker. Mark has relied on specialists in their field to advance the positive nature of this large project.
Having working internationally with large ngo’s and understanding the obvious impact of partners who have resources and deep experience, in any shape or form, determines the large scale of success required; adaptability, creativity, decisiveness, passion, and resourcefulness are required in this case; creation of a new global marketplace for sustainable US manufacturing.
This is only possible with US labs and University co-ordination, initial funding of such projects provide credibility and gate keepers open the gates.
There are millions of empty sports stadium seats available as free real estate for small pv modules around the world and they will create many megawatts of power, provide valued benefits to the local communities in their neighborhoods through workforce development and resilient emergency centers, for use in power outages.
There is currently no team, only private advisors.
Diversity will become a driving force in the community benefits program envisioned, as workforce development and community colleges converge for training solar power professionals. Graduate students & lab partners will be represented as available and possibly transition to working for the project given the lack of qualified skilled talent in the marketplace.
This structure and ability to execute makes a lot of sense to anyone who wants to improve the future in all metrics (savings, stable prices, wages, manufacturing, domestic hardware, fossil fuel based communities, B to B targeted sales, workforce development) described by this project. Follow-on funding becomes available once the project’s credibility is established.
We have a great idea, it is impactful as it creates a new international market for small easily produced flexible pv modules which enable large outdoor venues to lower costs, train workers, create qualified professionals, while addressing community solar in low income neighborhoods surrounding publicly funded urban stadiums. Technically this real estate is free to exploit, saving development & install costs
The project already has IP protection, a 2018 patent. Additional talent and resources are always critical to pre-seed startups as velocity is required.
The seats used in the early concept prototype were donated by Irwin Seating, one of the top ten sports stadium seating companies in the US who were interested in the development of this technology but who are unwilling to invest in R&D as a conservative family owned business. However this straightforward hardware technology is creating a “blue ocean “ technology market, and this space is ours.
Mark Walker’s ambitions, cost constraints, personal labor input, purchases of pv cells, and attaching flexible Maxeon cells to an Irwin Stadium seat show a strong commitment to accelerated development based on solid functionality and field data.
The administrator does need to assemble a tight small team of experts, grants and early investors would enable those commitments.
With a budget of $50,000 (600) flexible copper backed solar modules (9 cells each or 18 1/2 cells) could be installed on existing seats / infrastructure, in a sports stadium; 3 modules per unit, for placement on the seat, the seat back front, and seat back rear and would produce
50+ Watts each. In the marketplace 20 thousand seats would create roughly a Megawatt of power. $75,000 would purchase “off the shelf” pv module components and wiring, and would be used to install seats in a stadium and collect data.
These modules would be for the demonstration only. The data collected, experience gained, the team involved, the labs and institutions involved, would all have significant roles to play in the development of SunflowerSeating’s finished product; suitable for mass production. The study would enable an understanding of optimal seat design (tilt / folding armrest, wiring, etc), location, solar azimuth and total solar hours available, shading issues, wiring technology, and many other variables.
This data collection opportunity would be leveraged so that the project could be submitted to national labs and university affiliates, formalizing relationships and beginning studies for development of optimal pv technologies, materials studies, and for example supporting and gaining insights from specific graduate students researching pv emerging tech, creating our own skilled workforce in advance of a successful roll out.
The administrator has signed an NDA with a company for co-mentorship.
What are the best production methods in use and which best materials make the most sense to mass produce domestically? Production methods are being developed all over the world at a rapid pace so taking time to select the best functionality for our purposes is best resolved with more research and collaboration of an expert team.
A Go! Contest demo day would be based on the developed unit prototypes and previously collected data, and the pv seats proven ability to resilience, and creating distributed power and ability to power safe batteries. Ideal pilot partners would be a national lab, professional sports stadium and a university level institution with grad. level photovoltaics emphasis, a domestic manufacturer of bifacial modules, preferably all at the same time. Graduate department head Joshua Pearce PhD (PV materials expert) has expressed an interest in consulting and providing graduate students for research. These practices would reduce risk and allow marketing efforts to proceed across the sports stadium market and to architecture companies such as HOK/Populous (currently involved with Major League Soccer in Queens, New York’s “first fully electric” stadium with rooftop solar, completion planned in 2027. Yankee and Citi Field are much larger and have more solar exposed seat units.)
A Go! Win would support creation of US manufacturing high quality units for use in large stadiums of over 40,000 seats, in the US and internationally (some 17 Million.)