Pioneers

Three projects were built before 2000 that are private. These are entrprises (no big business) that are involved for the purpose of their future profitable use of the technolgy and I have no right to disclose specific information. However, this is no longer important because the Sola Roof technology is now dedicated to Open Source and I only work with groups that are ready to commit to Open Source Disclosure. Projects that are accessible and totally or at least partly dedicated to collaborative development of our knowledge base are the following:

The field test projects (outside of laboratory work) large projects that I can openly discuss include these structures:

The first fully equipped structure built as a portable research module was constructed in 1983 and used until 1985 in Hudson, Quebec the Sola Roof inventor, Richard Nelson.
The first proof of concept was implemented in my R&D Center constructed by Nelson's enrerprise (Thermactive Systems) in Valleyfield, Quebec near Montreal and housing two roof areas of 20' by 50' equipped with Liquid Solar and Bubble Tech systems and constructed with aluminum joists - built in 1985 and operated till 1989 when I moved the business into a north Montreal industrial building of 6,000 ft2 having a large and high cieling warehouse where we built full scale greenhouse models indoors, using lamps to duplicate the solar radiation.
The first Wide Span project was constructed by Nelson in 1990 after three years of large scale prototyping in Montreal - constructed for "field testing" at Mc Gill ? University (Mac Donald ? College Campus) which was 6,000 ft2 and built in steel and was operated 2 years and dismantled;
Nelson built two back yard greenhouse structures - tent-style and dome-style from 1991 to 1994 in St.Anne de Bellevue, Quebec, which were fully equipped and used to generate substantial documentation and grow many types of food and horticulture plants in a closed atmosphere (CO 2 enriched) controlled environment system.
The next large Wide Span structure was built in 1995 in Alberta, south of Calgary in collaboration with Bill Sturm, owner - It was 12,000 ft2 in area and operated for 4 years, producing excellent crops of tomatoes continuously through the winter, it was constructed of hot dip galvanized steel and with the roof only equiped with bubble technology it demonstrated an 84% energy saving - it was converted to conventional structure in 1999 since Bill did not proceed to expand this research project to a commercial scale.
In 1999 to 2001 the MSAE project was constructed in Fairfield, Iowa - constructed entirely in aluminum with special extrusion providing integrated locking mechanism to secure the roof cover system to the frame - using the Liquid Solar and Bubble Tech systems in the roof and Bubble Tech in all walls, this project is using organic and biological hydroponics (sometimes called "Bioponics") - there were some start up problems with the roof cover materials - the project is semi private and there is not much feedback
The first commercial scale tunnel type structure was constructed in 2001 by Ross Elliott near Ottawa, Canada for organic gardening - Ross and Kat are leaders of the development of our Open Source community - many reports and workshops have been provided, assistance is needed for monitoring and objective documentation of results. This is now more than a decade of continuous success with the use of the Bubble Tech solution.
Development of large scale commercial "Double Tunnel ?" structure systems started in 2003 and is continuing by Batu of South Korea - with considerable success and openness - however, as this is a private enterprise it is not orientated to full disclosure until the time that commercialization is ready to go forward.
Harvey Raynor has constructed in 2004 a serious backyard project using the Dubble Tunnel ? method in Suffolk, England - very open and supporting collaborative development. He has a commitment to Open Source sharing of his developments and has published at www.solarbubblebuild.com.

Fast Forward: Significant project development opportunities in Europe!

I have assisted with all of these projects (and many more smaller or private projects) and since my move to England in 2002 I have spent time in Malaysia and Spain to promote the development of manufacturing capacity to serve the EU and other regions - with a special focus on the Wide Span design. Late in 2004 I have developed the Eco Sphere concept, which is my first human habitat project.

The Evolve Greenhouse development created a large scale field prototype of 800 M2 in Cambridge at the site of the Stubbins Company - a very large scale grower, with operations in the UK and Spain, who teamed up with a consortium with financial support from the Shell Foundation. The project was privatized against the wishes of the majority of the consortium members, but with a legal agreement that the results would only be commercialized with the consent and licensing by Sola Roof. This work spanned from about 2006 to 2008.

The next significant project was funded by two USA angel investors who provided the backing for an extended period of development in Norway that resulted in a POC for the newly emerging Agri POD concept for Vertical Farming - the result is the Solar Greenhouse project that was completed by 2011 by my private company at the site of Lindum AS in Drammen. In 2012, the success of this pilot resulted in a grant approval by the EU Eco Innovation program for funding support (50% match-money) of up to 800K euros. Under this program University of Poznan has completed a couple of pilot projects using Sola Roof technology, but are operating on the "dark side" without respect to the obligations of use of our Open Source technology. With such disappointingly serious abuse and pirating of know-how I have returned to work in Canada and the USA with the present POD Net Plan that I hope will assure a strong Open Source community of developers and users will emerge and will find support from a supply chain that is adopting the CCPL for commercialization.