Vertical Agriculture: Sprung Structures
Dan Cloutier - President of Seer Management Investments (SMI) and Agro Resiliency Kit (ARK) Ltd, Dan has significant expertise in incubating high-growth technology-based companies. Seer has worked as a consulting company in energy efficiency since its inception. We have typically contracted our services under others brands as we do today with Onsite Power Partners / Crown Capital and Nexus Power Solutions over the last decade.
Ark is an ancient Hebrew word for “to cover”. That is extremely apt as the vision and purpose of our company, coming from our roots in the energy sector which led us to understand the incredible opportunities in front of us for far greater energy efficiency by means and approaches of leveraging passive solar for space heating but also cooling which we demonstrate and have deployed in our commercial greenhouse co-located on Sprungs corporate campus located in Aldersyde, Alberta. Greenhouses have many uses such as of course growing produce, but not least of which is for use in the most energy efficient commercial building applications in the world such as what Manitoba Hydro has proven with their highly energy efficient head office, close to the corner of Portage and Main in Winnipeg. This building has proven that even in a very cold climate, it is entirely feasible to heat and cool a multi-story tower without the use of fossil fuels. Seer/ARK /Sprung Structures is pursuing advancing such energy efficiency and high resiliency feats for its customers.
ARK in a business alliance with Sprung Instant Structures. ARK is a consortium of companies working together to offer a comprehensive solution set for advancing greenhouse growing through state-of-the-art structures, energy efficiency (e.g. CHP), vertical grow structures, lighting, aquaponics and more, to achieve unparalleled productivity, low capital cost, low operating cost and sustainable, resilient operation.
Dan is recognized as a leading cogeneration industry figure. For over two decades, Dan has coordinated the installation of more micro-CHP into commercial buildings than anyone else in Alberta. In Western Canada, Dan has sold and installed CHP systems for many customers including:
• Broxburn Greenhouse
• Alberta Urban Municipality Association
• Oxford Developments
• SNC Lavalin
• Christenson Developments
• City of Calgary
• Triovest
• Calgary Co-op
• Cadillac Fairview
• Kanas
• Jayman
• Graham Construction
• Melcor
• City of Saskatoon
• Hole’s Greenhouse
- Sprung Structures
- MgO Systems
- Linamar
In addition to cogeneration / combined heat and power projects Dan has been involved small-scale wind, solar and geothermal. Dan’s first involvement with combined heat and power solutions was as a volunteer Board member of Cardel Place where Dan spearheaded pursuing the first Gold Leed designation in Alberta. Dan is a third generation native Albertan with a myriad of volunteer experience going back to the early 80’s with Clean Calgary, the Calgary Field Naturalists, to the American Marketing Association who presented him a Special Merit Award, to 2009 when Dan was named the Calgary Northstars Hockey Associations Volunteer of the Year.