With solar powered technologies now cheaper and more popular than ever, GoSun aims to expand its line of solar grills and ovens and venture into manufacturing more solar-powered appliances.
Founded in 2012, the Cincinnati startup looks to make cooking outdoors with zero harmful gasses easier and quicker with the GoSun Grill, which can bake, boil or steam a meal for up to eight people in 20 minutes or less. GoSun also makes GoSun Sport, a smaller version of the grill, and GoSun Station, a commercial-scale solar over oven. The compact GoSun Go, an even smaller version of the grill which weighs only two pounds, will be unveiled in May.
“We want to fuel that space in life where outdoor life needs to be made more delightful with respect to heating and cooling and lighting and furniture,” said GoSun founder and CEO Patrick Sherwin. “We’ve got a lot of new and exciting products in the works. We expect to unfold several products a year and continue to build a very big global solar lifestyle brand.”
“We feel our technology is a huge opportunity to serve those people that don’t have access to cheaper, easier-to-use energy sources like propane or electricity.”
Sherwin founded GoSun after nearly two decades of learning about and working with solar technologies. He first became fascinated with solar while still in high school and worked around Ohio implementing off-grid power solutions. One day in a suburban garage, Sherwin experimented with a solar water heater. He discovered that the tubes of the heater could be used to reheat food. From this realization, the design of GoSun solar cookers was born.
“I always thought there needed to be a better way to cook food without burning fuel, but solar cooking technology was relatively inferior — it was slow and bulky and unsafe,” Sherwin said. “When I discovered the tubes that GoSun utilizes, I knew I was on to something and designing around that for years before launching GoSun.”
GoSun initially launched on Kickstarter (and is the highest-funded project in Cincinnati) and was partially self-funded by Sherwin, but the startup has also secured $1 million from 500 investors around the world. Sherwin said GoSun’s growth can also be accredited to the great team behind the products, which includes eight employees and one intern.
So far, there are 20,000 GoSun stoves across every continent except Antarctica. While the primary customers of GoSun live in developed nations, the startup also operates a social enterprise that aims to solve the problem of energy poverty. Sherwin became aware of the effects of energy poverty after volunteering with nonprofits in Haiti and Latin America.
Around the world, over 3 billion people cook on wood stoves, and often a large portion of a family’s income is spent on fuel and firewood for them. Using wood for stoves contributes to deforestation as well as toxic smoke from the fires, which kills more than 1.9 million people annually.
GoSun has worked to get 200 of their solar grills in the homes of people in developing nations worldwide. The grills are sold in developing nations at a break-even point and are made affordable for those that need them through microfinance institutions. Within just a few months, the GoSun grills pay for themselves, since they do not require users to purchase fuel or firewood. The solar grills also save time, as they do not have to be tended to all day, like wood fires.
Sherwin said GoSun will invest heavily in Africa as the next step of the social enterprise, where smoke inhalation kills more people per year than AIDS and malaria combined.
“We feel our technology is a huge opportunity to serve those people that don’t have access to cheaper, easier-to-use energy sources like propane or electricity,” Sherwin said. “We’ve put people on the ground, we’ve put design and engineer teams together to address these problems, and finally, we’re looking to hybridize or equip out stoves with two power supplies: one for solar and one for electricity, so that you’ll be able to switch the stove on in the event that you don’t have sunlight.”
While GoSun expands around the world, Sherwin said the company hopes to become a household name for solar technology in developed nations.
“People are ready for technologies that make their life greener and easier,” he said. “We see a lot of people interested in a lifestyle of health and sustainability, and they pick up on the innovation and quickly find ways to apply it in their backyards or their campsite. Green technologies have grown leaps and bounds in the last couple of decades, and the stigma that solar technology is unreliable or inefficient or too expensive is changing very rapidly.”
