Episode Transcript

Cortney Piper: Welcome to Energizing Tennessee, powered by the Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council. We’re your number-one podcast for news about Tennessee’s advanced energy sector. I’m your host, Cortney Piper.

We’ve got a full house this episode. Joining me today are Chris Staackmann, Head of Operations of AESSEAL North America, Solar Alliance’s President & CEO Brian Timmons and General Manager U.S. Jon Hamilton. We spoke about AESSEAL’s, solar and storage project, the first of its kind in Tennessee, and highlighted the company’s leadership as a multinational company, as well as Solar Alliance’s, leadership in the commercial and industrial market, AESSEAL’s project serves as inspiration for other foreign and domestic owned manufacturers looking to advance their corporate goals focused on renewable energy and sustainability.

This episode is extremely timely because TAEBC recently awarded AESSEAL with the coveted Thomas B. Ballard Advanced Energy Leadership Award at our annual Opportunities in Energy event. This award honors exemplary leadership and success in strengthening Tennessee’s advanced energy economy. Keep listening to hear more about that.

This episode was made possible thanks to the support of TAEBC member Solar Alliance. Thank you Brian, Jon, and the Solar Alliance team for supporting Energizing Tennessee. And as always, if you like what you hear, subscribe to our channel and leave a rating or review. It helps us reach a wider audience and champion Tennessee’s advanced energy sector.

Today, I’m speaking with three representatives from two organizations about incredible solar and storage news in Tennessee. Today, we have Chris Staackmann, head of operations at  AESSEAL North America.  AESSEAL customizes mechanical seals and related systems for a broad manufacturing market, helping industry partners achieve their own goals for efficiency and sustainability. The company also took home the 2024 Thomas B. Ballard Advanced Energy Leadership Award at TAEBC’s annual Opportunities in Energy event. We also have Brian Timmons, the newly appointed president and CEO of Solar Alliance, and Jon Hamilton, general manager U.S. of Solar Alliance. Solar Alliance is an energy solutions provider focused on the commercial utility and community solar sectors.

They’re also a TAEBC member. So gentlemen, welcome and thank you for coming on the show. 

Brian Timmons: Thank you, Cortney. 

Cortney Piper: Chris,  AESSEAL’s North American headquarters just brought online a very unique scaled solar plus storage system in Rockford, Tennessee to support its net zero goals.

 Tell us about this investment and what it means for the state as well as your company. 

Chris Staackmann: So for the state, it serves as a great example of what can be done. And I’m sure Jon will go into a bit more detail on their aspect of it. And there’s a bit of a unique aspect to the battery and the size and how we’ve scaled that appropriately.

Looking at this from a bit wider of a lens, the  AESSEAL Engineering Limited Group has committed to invest £29 million by 2029 on sustainable projects. This investment’s global. It’ll potentially have huge influence on the successful efforts to limit global warming. By committing to take this global company beyond net zero and explaining how we’re doing it.

We believe we’ll be able to provide a roadmap for other companies and organizations who share our concerns about ethical balance and sustainable development. The global business wants to ensure the sustainability of our planet for future generations will continue to allow industry to grow. And to operate without this investment, our global business would be negatively impacting the planet through investing globally within not only just the United States, but within Tennessee, within all of our other locations in America.

AESSEAL demonstrates that is committed to no matter where in the world, putting our mission statement forward. 

Cortney Piper: And Jon, I will get to you in a moment to give us more specifics about that project. But before we do that, Chris, talk to us a little bit more about AESSEAL. Not necessarily a household name, but it is well known among other manufacturers.

So Chris, can you explain your role in mechanical seals for the industry? 

Chris Staackmann: AESSEAL we make mechanical cartridge seals. These seals fit a wide range of pumps and rotating equipment. These seals are designed to prevent liquids and gases from escaping into the environment. We manufacture a wide variety of seals to fit many industries: oil and gas, chemical, pulp and paper, waste water, food and beverage. Our sealing solutions are proven to reduce energy and water consumption, reducing industrial CO2 emissions and helping to protect the environment. The solutions are designed to improve equipment reliability and reduce maintenance costs. Mechanical seals was one of those things that, you know, growing up, you never really hear about them.

But after spending 10 years in this industry, darn near every aspect of our world touches some sort of sealing device.  AESSEAL is the third largest of what we do. And we’re slowly growing from not only just a vendor and a provider of a good, but also working towards being a reliability partner with our customers.

Brian Timmons: Can I just add Cortney that having looked into the background of  AESSEAL I was really impressed to see it’s run by an outstanding visionary and leader who started the company a couple of decades ago and has grown it profitably in a really impressive way. And it’s an outstanding company that we’re so proud to be associated with, and we hope to continue that association.

Cortney Piper: Excellent. Now, Jon, I’m going to bring you in here to talk about the specifics of this project. It’s a really significant project and investment for a private industry in the state of Tennessee. 526 kilowatt rooftop solar array, but it has a 500 kilowatt hour battery. So why is the large battery aspect so significant or just you can even go into the details about the project?

Jon Hamilton: Sure, no problem. First off, part of this project is really an example of the feasibility of certain these kind of technologies at scale and that is the unique aspect of it and we’re obviously members of industry associations and that kind of thing that we haven’t directly seen an example like this in the valley.

There’s bespoke projects where you’ve looked at what a battery might be able to do in an off grid like scenario or decoupled from the grid. And of course there’s batteries at the utility scale level where you’re managing discharge and, helping stabilize the grid for a variety of other benefits.

But to do this at a manufacturer, at a business where the business decides that this is what they want to achieve is really unique. And, for the direct benefits to AESSEAL for the plant aspect, obviously it comes down to, they’re able to produce more solar than they might otherwise be able to use at that time.

They can then store that power, discharge it when they need it if the grid were to go down because of the size of the system. It could actually provide limited capability for the duration of whatever time that outage is. So you have utility bill optimization, you have, kind of time shift of the solar resource, and you have a resiliency standpoint here where it is able to cover limited outages.

And frankly, we are blessed to be in the region where we are, so outages are often small and short duration, but they still impact the business as they’re going through operations. So to be able to do all of those things with this project is really unique. And we think an example for businesses around the region that they’ll be able to follow it.

Cortney Piper: Speaking of this, both you, Jon and Brian and Chris, you’ve also mentioned that this system can serve as an example for other Tennessee businesses. So what advice do either of you have for other industries looking to add this kind of resilience of energy storage and cut operating costs. 

Chris Staackmann: I may take this one, guys.

Energy investments aren’t just about sustainability. They’re about long term profitability and resilience. By investing in renewable energy and efficiency projects, we’ve not only reduced our environmental impact, but also significantly lowered our operating costs. These savings add up over time, providing a clear financial return.

Looking at the project as a whole, Jon, I think you could add to this a little bit going into it. It was a little bit of an unknown in the East Tennessee area, and as we worked through the nuances of getting the project live and moving forward with it, I think we found everybody that touched this project, whether it be the, extension of TVA, Maryville Electric any of the other local government officials that got involved, they all became quickly positive on the idea, and I think we’re quite hopeful that by AESSEAL and Solar Alliance going through this, if another opportunity and another business is interested in a solution like this, we’ve not rubber stamped it, but we’ve certainly taken away some of the stranger aspect.

Jon Hamilton: Yeah, if I could add to that, Chris, real briefly, I think you’re totally right that this ultimately has to make business, it has to have a common sense business case that’s understandable and approachable. I think that again, part of the uniqueness of this project is that we are demonstrating that capability, that potential that you can make a financially viable energy storage plus solar case, for a manufacturer and I think that shouldn’t get lost because there are a lot of representatives with energy storage at the very small level, the residential or small commercial level.

But to be at this scale really has a much greater financial impact. And I think most of this starts with understanding how you use power. What does that look like? Evaluating how you actually are being billed. Where the opportunity is to limit demand or to lower your peak demand.

And then also combining that with cost of billed and the size of the solar resource that might be available. In this case, it doesn’t take 500 kilowatts to run AESSEAL’s facility, but because they had the larger solar resource, they were able to overproduce from, what they might otherwise use instantaneously.

A lot of other European, particularly European, but also Japanese foreign manufacturers that we come across. We’re not able to do all of that in one place. We size the solar to be able to maximize self consumption, beneath that overall demand curve. But in that way, solar or energy storage isn’t necessarily a component of their solution.

But it was an incredible project to be able to look at this one and say, no, this is a viable case. This isn’t batteries or not just. appropriate for off grid scenarios. They’re not just appropriate for utility scale stabilization, but it is totally possible to make the business case at the manufacturer level.

And I think AESSEAL obviously deserves a lot of credit for being willing to take that on. And in the process, there was a lot of learning that goes through, with the coordinating agencies and those affected. But I think Chris is right. At the end of the day, they see the technology, they see that it’s mature. We’re not piecing together batteries in our garage and then putting them out at AESSEAL. These are real, credible technologies that can bring a direct benefit to business in the area. 

Cortney Piper: Jon, what we know from the TVA territory is demands on the power grid are going to increase.

They are not going to decrease. And what you have here is a project that’s benefiting the local power company and TVA as it relates to that demand. Can you talk a little bit more about that? 

Jon Hamilton: Yeah again, my day job is not to solve TVA’s challenge. But it is a real challenge because I think from the standpoint of electrification and particularly not so much in just electric vehicles, although that is a real component of, I think, our near term future.

But also you look at AI, you look at data centers and if we’re going to continue to provide low cost power in the region, with the potential for that to be, even larger growth rates than we’ve, in some cases projected or anticipated. There’s only so many tools that we have in our kit, and in this case, this is a tool that the business themselves is deploying.

 AESSEAL is investing in this. They’re investing in this resource, this solar resource that is allowing them to benefit, clearly. But I do think that there is an aggregate benefit when we look at it. on the whole of the region. If we were to look at new power generation, where some of the data center, larger data center companies have talked about wanting nuclear energy to provide that clean aspect.

Those are big projects that take long duration lead times and they’re not just easy solutions. So save a material breakthrough or Some kind of real technology breakthrough that would change this or create an even more disruptive paradigm shift We’re witnessing the ability of again businesses to impact the greater good as well as well as financially benefiting them by investing in these kind of technologies and I don’t want it to get lost on the fact that at the end of the  AESSEAL will benefit financially, they’ll benefit from the resilience But in the aggregate, the more that we’re able to adopt of these technologies, the more we see this come to fruition across the energy landscape.

I think it can help contribute to retaining low cost power solutions, here in the Valley, which has been fundamental to our economic development and our growth. And it will be even more important to our economic future, I think. 

Cortney Piper: Yeah. And Brian, I know you are increasingly seeing energy projects go from the theoretical stage to what is practical for businesses today.

So how does that conversation even begin for business managers who are typically used to a two year return on investment for any capital project? This is a different sort of investment often with a longer ROI, if I can get my words out, but it’s got instant benefits. Can you help us understand this?

Brian Timmons: This is a highly strategic investment. The significance of energy, particularly in manufacturers, can’t be overstated. And as Jon has mentioned, the onset of AI and the opening of data centers all over the place is creating real stress on price and supply, and as it happens investment in cost reduction is one of the lowest risk investments that a company can make.

So it makes a huge amount of strategic sense to undertake this type of investment. And AESSEAL is a really good example of that. I said a moment ago, I was referring to the outstanding nature of the company. It’s a strong growing, really profitable company that also takes care of its energy and sustainability requirements.

And that says it all, the two go hand in hand, making this sort of investment to protect the future of a company’s energy supply and its price. It goes hand in hand with growth and high profitability, and  AESSEAL is a perfect example of that. 

Cortney Piper: So Chris, that, that brings me back to you.

Some larger manufacturers might not see the long term value of this kind of energy investment. What would you say to them? 

Chris Staackmann: I think Brian said it perfectly. Any type of investment into cost reduction will always have a positive return. It will make you more efficient, will make you more resilient.

Fortunately, for myself, for AESSEAL, for anyone in our business, we’ve got a very keen focus on improving our efficiencies and improving our use and consumption of electricity. Ages ago, we moved from brown energy here at AESSEAL and we’re strictly focusing on what we could be doing to generate our electrical generation through the PV grid. I think. If I was to look at this project, if I was to look at other large manufacturing sites that want to do something akin to this, one of the things that we’ve not really touched on that hopefully one day we can do is that, well, this project isn’t modular. It can certainly be expanded upon. So we could start here.

And then as we look at what our demands are for the next 20 years we can continue to grow and move this forward. If I look at our UK headquarters in Rotherham, England, we started with one battery. Okay, well now we have two batteries, and we started with phase one facility and expanded into now phase two, three, four.

Phase four being the factory of the future, which is incredibly high spec, incredibly right into the realm we want to be. be in as we promote ourselves as a reliability business, and I think If we were trying to encourage other manufacturers and other industries to, take a page out of our book, that would be something that I would lean into is the fact that you can start small and continue to grow it, but you really should start regardless.

Cortney Piper: That’s great. This is such a wonderful project to have in the state of Tennessee, to have in East Tennessee, because it really shows that the advanced energy industry, in my opinion, is really agnostic of the industry you’re in. Everybody has to use energy, no matter what you are producing or doing.

And to the extent that you can make your operations more resilient, reduce operating costs. Projects like these just make sense. And then they also provide a really great example for our local power companies, as well as TVA, as they think about how they can become energy companies of the future.

Because, the model of having one centralized power plant that goes across hundreds of miles, and produces electricity that people then tap into. I think those days are evolving into something a little bit more distributed. And to the extent that we can all embrace that, we’ll have even more economic opportunities for our state and our country and the globe.

So I want to thank you all. A couple more questions here. Again, these are for. Brian and Chris we are the Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council, so we like to talk about Tennessee. Your companies are just some of the many that are converging on Tennessee, bringing global investment to the state.

As a matter of fact, Tennessee is very proud of the amount of foreign direct investment that we have in the state. So Brian, you’re a CEO, a parent solar company that’s based out of Canada, out of Toronto with the construction unit based in Knoxville. What attracts businesses like yours to Tennessee?

Brian Timmons: I think Tennessee is clearly a vibrant area seeking to attract industries and create strong, positive, satisfying jobs and it’s succeeding in that. So obviously there’s a buzz in this region that’s very attractive and we see great opportunity to grow and develop and participate in the growth and development of the region itself.

We’re so happy to do that. And by the way, just to pick up your point about distributed power, and it just calls to mind that. I recall that when the first computers were being developed by, I think, a founder possibly of IBM, he was speculating that there might be a requirement for four or five or six computers in the world to satisfy his computing needs.

Now, many decades later, everybody’s got a computer. In fact, we carry around computers in our pockets. We see that the necessity obviously for probably for nuclear down the road to meet a huge requirement, but also we see the advantage of distributed energy generation being made available in the manufacturers that we’re dealing with to secure their own energy futures.

So we’re delighted to participate in that. And Tennessee is an ideal region that encourages that for us to work in. So we’re delighted to be here and to be part of that progression and development of the state. 

Cortney Piper: And Chris,  AESSEAL is in Blount County. What can you tell us about the operations in Blount County?

How many people are there? Why do you all enjoy doing business in Blount County? 

Chris Staackmann: So there’s roughly 80 of us that work out of this building. Fortunately we’ve got a pretty strong supply chain network that runs globally and we can tap into many of our resources. So we’ve been able to keep a relatively small footprint here in Blount County. But what do we love about Blount County? The Chamber of Commerce is nothing but fantastic. The employees that we get to keep, we find we keep them for decades, which tells me something about the people that work here. I find that The state is recognizing that the development for education and how that ties into the workforce is becoming more and more crucial.

Whether it be through local community colleges, whether it be through larger universities, I’m finding that there’s a fair amount of investment going back into local and regional development for the workforce to stay within the state and continue to help grow. 

Cortney Piper: Great. And a final question here before we get to the final question, Chris, I don’t know if we’ve put a dollar figure on how much money y’all are saving on your utility bill.

Would you mind sharing that figure? 

Chris Staackmann: So I don’t know if it’s going to be possible to put a dollar figure on it. Like I had said before, we’ve functionally transitioned completely away from brown energy. So gas is no longer part of our facility. Looking at the electrics recently, AESSEAL has continued to invest into our internal equipment to make us more efficient, whether it be through continued CNC milling machines, whether it be in automated storage.

I find that our electrical requirements are growing and growing. However, if we were to look at our current demand, if we were to look back maybe a month or two, when we were still having a fair bit of sun our demand was being fully taken care of by the battery and the PV setup. As we move into less sunny periods, I think it’s very optimistic to say that 60 to 70% of our demand will be produced by the PV and the battery arrangement.

So if we were being very optimistic, 30% or less of our demand will not be covered, which we couldn’t be happier about, like I said before, we’ve proven this technology. It can be considered module. If we decide we’re going to grow it, well, we will. 

Cortney Piper: Excellent. Well, for our listeners that want to learn more about your companies and your work, where should they go?

Jon and Brian, where can folks learn more about Solar Alliance? 

Jon Hamilton: Obviously the website’s probably the easiest one, solaralliance.com. We’re here in South Knoxville. For the local region, just pick up the phone and we’d be happy to work with you. 

Cortney Piper: All right. And Chris, where can folks learn more about  AESSEAL?

Chris Staackmann: Similar to Jon, you can go to AESSEAL.com. 

Cortney Piper: All right. Chris, Brian, and Jon, thanks so much for coming on the show. 

Brian Timmons: Thank you very much for inviting us. 

Cortney Piper: And that’s our show. Thanks for tuning into Energizing Tennessee, powered by the Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council, your number-one podcast for news about Tennessee’s advanced energy sector.

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