Vertical Energi
01 / The Problem

Every port on earth
has this asset.

None of them are using it.

Every big port in the world has a tall metal fence around it. The fence is already built. It is already paid for. Nobody is making money from it. You cannot put solar panels on the ground at a port. Every bit of ground is used to stack shipping containers or drive trucks. You cannot put many panels on the roofs either. The buildings are not strong enough to hold them. And normal flat solar panels make power at the wrong time of day. So no port has ever put solar panels on the fence. Anywhere.

No room on the ground

Every bit of ground at a port is used to stack containers, run crane rails, or drive trucks. A port manager will never give up space for solar panels.

0 m² — empty ground for solar
Roofs cannot hold them

Port buildings were not built to carry extra weight on top. Making them strong enough costs more than the power is worth.

Under 15% of roofs work
Wrong time of day

Flat panels make the most power at lunchtime when nobody needs it. They stop at 6pm when everybody comes home and turns everything on. This is called the duck curve. It is a problem where solar makes too much power at lunchtime and not enough at dinnertime.

2 hours — how fast the grid must ramp up at dinnertime
The Port of Antwerp-Bruges is the second biggest port in Europe. It has tried wind power and normal solar. Nobody has ever tried panels on the fence. Not there. Not anywhere.
The Duck Curve — Why Timing Matters
6am9am12pm3pm6pm9pm05001000150020002500System Net Load (MW)Power the grid needs (MW)Lunchtime — too much power, nobody homeDinnertime — sudden huge demandOur panels fill the gap
Power the grid still needs (normal flat solar) Standing-up panels that catch sun on both sides

Picture a busy street. At noon, nobody is home. At 6pm, everybody comes home. They turn on the lights, the stove, the AC. They charge the car. Normal flat solar panels make tons of power at noon when nobody needs it. Then they stop right when everybody needs power most. Power plants have to ramp up fast — from low to full blast in under two hours. This is the duck curve.

Our panels stand up like a wall instead of lying flat. They catch sunlight on both sides. One side faces east and one side faces west. The east side makes power at 8am when people wake up. The west side makes power at 3pm when factories run hardest and AC kicks in. We make power when the grid needs it most. That is when power costs the most too.

02 / The Insight

Stand the panels up
like a wall on the fence.

  • The fence is already there — nothing new to build
  • No port ground is used up
  • East side makes power in the morning
  • West side makes power in the afternoon
  • A 1-meter gap at the bottom keeps full port security
  • Harder to climb than a normal open fence
  • Top-quality 500W panels with international safety approval
  • 25-year power warranty
  • Vertical solar has been used in Europe for years on farms and along roads. Nobody has tried it on a port fence yet. We are the first to do this.
  • Over 800 secure ports in the world. Zero have these panels today.
Nobody else is doing this. The space is wide open.
03 / The Technology

Normal parts. New way to put them up.

3m+CCTV MOUNT1–3mBIFACIAL PANEL ZONE2m ↕☀ AM →0–1mOPEN FENCEGROUND LEVEL
Camera up top — clear view over the open gap at the bottom
East side makes morning power · West side makes afternoon power
500W top-quality panels with international safety approval · 25-year warranty
Guards can still see through the bottom — full port security
Harder to climb than a plain fence · Nothing to grab onto · Meets port security rules · Security gets better
Item
Spec
Detail
Power output
500W per panel
Top-quality, internationally approved
Both sides
Both faces make power
East and west, on their own
Warranty
25 years
Loses under 0.5% power per year
Height
1 to 3 meters tall
Posts get 10–15% thicker for wind
Brands
LONGi Hi-MO 6
JA DeepBlue 4.0 or similar
Why This Matters For Whoever Builds It
  • Panels bolt onto the fence posts that are already there — no new concrete
  • Posts just get a little thicker for wind — normal steel work
  • Cables run along the fence — no digging
  • Small power boxes every 200 to 500 meters — easy to grow
  • Any solar crew can do it — no special training
  • Built in pieces — one kilometer at a time, each turned on by itself
  • Checking on it is simple — clean the panels, check the boxes, check the posts
04 / The Market

US Ports First. Then the World.

0+
Big secure ports in the world
0%
Of US shipping containers come through San Pedro Bay
0
Year Long Beach must hit zero emissions
0
Year European laws started forcing shipping to clean up
OUR PLAN: We do not need any one port to say yes. Southern California, Florida, or Europe — whichever port signs first becomes our showcase. All three are open right now.
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
San Diego base · Southern California ports
San Pedro Bay Ports
  • Port of Long Beach — must hit zero emissions by 2035
  • Port of Los Angeles — 40% of US shipping containers come through here
  • Port of Hueneme — smaller port, perfect size for a first try
  • Port of San Diego — already working on clean energy
  • San Diego base — we know people across the area
  • California may help pay for solar
Best place to start — our San Diego base and California laws push for it.
OTHER US PORTS
Florida and the East Coast
Florida and the East Coast
  • Port Canaveral, FL — small and close to home for the Florida company
  • Port of Fernandina, FL — small, perfect size for a first try
  • Port of Baltimore — close to federal energy programs
  • Port of Savannah — biggest container port on the East Coast
  • US clean-air rules push these ports just like the West Coast
Home turf. Savannah is the big one.
INTERNATIONAL
Adriatic Sea and Mediterranean
Europe and Beyond
  • Port of Durrës, Albania — we have a warm contact
  • Porto Romano — brand new 400-hectare port, fence work being bid now
  • Italy (Genoa, Trieste), Croatia (Rijeka), Greece
  • European laws force ports to use cleaner energy
  • A finished US project makes every overseas pitch stronger
Real and active — but not needed. The US works on its own.
This is being pushed everywhere: European laws force ports to use cleaner energy starting in 2024. More rules kick in by 2030. California must hit zero emissions by 2035. US clean-air laws are already on the books. Every port has to find clean energy because the law says so.
05 / The Numbers

Three Ways to Make Money. Nothing Hidden.

How much sun matters: Standing-up panels in Southern California make about 950 to 1,000 units of power per panel per year. Florida makes about 1,000 to 1,050. Albania makes about 1,050. All of these beat Belgium, which only gets 800. The numbers below use the lowest Southern California number to stay safe. Every other place makes us look better.
01
WAY 1 · WE BUILD IT
Build it. Keep the margin.

We sign the deal with the port. We hire a normal solar company to do the work. We keep the difference. We do not need much money to start.

This table shows how much money we make on each port we build. The "Low" and "High" columns are the worst and best case.

Item
Low
High
Deal size per port
$680K
$970K
What it costs us
$565K
$806K
Profit per port
$115K
$164K
Profit %
17%
17%
Year 1 (1 port)
$115K
$164K
Year 2 (2 ports)
$230K
$328K
Year 3 (4 ports)
$460K
$656K
Year 5 (8 ports)
$920K
$1.3M
No big money needed to start. The first deal pays for itself.
02
WAY 2 · WE LOOK AFTER IT
Build it once. Get paid every year.

Every port we finish also pays us every year to check on it and keep it working. Looking after panels on a port fence is harder than looking after panels on the ground. You need special badges to get inside ports that follow international security rules. The power boxes are spread out along the fence. The panels are up high so you cannot reach them from a truck. All of that costs more. So we charge more. We hire normal workers at cost. We keep the management fee every year, on every port, forever.

This table shows how much money we make each year on every port we look after. The "Low" and "High" columns are the worst and best case.

Item
Low
High
Yearly fee per port
$81K
$135K
What it costs us (~45%)
$36K
$61K
Profit per port per year
$45K
$74K
Profit %
55%
55%
Year 2 (1 port)
$45K
$74K
Year 3 (3 ports)
$135K
$222K
Year 4 (6 ports)
$270K
$444K
Year 5 (10 ports)
$450K
$740K
This is the steady paycheck. $450K to $740K per year by Year 5 on 10 ports.
Our yearly fee is higher than the fee for normal ground solar. Why? Port security badges take time. Power boxes are spread out along kilometers of fence. Workers can't drive a truck along the fence. The panels are up high and the posts need checking. All of that takes more time and more skilled people.
03
WAY 3 · WE OWN THE PANELS (YEARS 5–10)
Own the panels. Sell the power for 20 years.

After we've built and maintained several ports, we use our track record to raise infrastructure capital from institutional investors. We use that capital to buy the panels and own them outright. The port signs a 20-year agreement to buy the power from us at a fixed rate — lower than what they currently pay their utility.

This table shows the economics of owning the panels at a single port. The numbers are larger because we earn revenue every year for two decades.

Item
Low
High
Capital raised per port
$9.4M
$15.2M
Power price (PPA, per MWh)
$95
$110
Annual power revenue
$880K
$1.5M
Payback period
10 yrs
12 yrs
Profit over remaining 15 yrs
$13.2M
$22.5M
Who pays us
Port authority
(public entity, investment-grade credit)
Panel useful life
25 yrs
30 yrs
Capital source
Infrastructure funds
(green bonds, pension capital)
We don't fund this off our own balance sheet. We raise institutional capital once our operating record justifies it.
WHY THE PORT STILL WINS

The port could build its own solar — but it would have to put up the capital, take on the construction risk, and carry the maintenance burden for 25 years. Under our PPA, the port spends zero capital, transfers all build and performance risk to us, and locks in a power price below its current industrial utility rate for 20 years. It's a cleaner balance sheet and a lower cost of power. That's why ports sign.

WAY 1 + WAY 2 COMBINED AT YEAR 5
8 ports built that year, plus 10 ports we look after: $1.37M to $2.04M profit per year
06 / The Challenges

Real Risks. Honest Answers. Here Is How We Handle Each One.

We will be the first company to do this. Port managers like things that have been proven. The first sales meeting is harder when we cannot point to a finished example.

We are not making cold calls. Southern California ports are being forced by law to clean up. We have a local San Diego presence, so we are not strangers walking in. A small 1-kilometer test on one friendly port gives us the finished example. After that, every other meeting gets easier.

We think the posts only need to be 10 to 15% thicker for wind. That is a good estimate. But every fence is a little different. Post spacing and local wind can change the answer.

Step 1 at every port is a fence walk-around to check the posts. A licensed engineer signs off before we order any panels. Every solar project does this. It is a normal cost, not a deal-breaker.

Many kilometers of fence means many small connection points, not one. The wiring and small power boxes need careful design. Getting permission from the city or state takes time.

The first 1-kilometer test is small enough for a single plug-in. After that, we build it in sections, and turn each section on by itself. In California, the process to plug into the state grid is well known. A local solar partner handles it all the time.

Nobody else is doing this today. Once people see it, bigger companies with more money could try to catch up. Every month we wait is a month they could move.

Our advantage is being first. Once we install one port and collect a year of real data, no competitor can catch up to that data — they would have to wait a full year themselves. Plus any rival still needs to find a port willing to be their first customer. We get there first by acting first.

The first port makes $115K to $164K. That is real money but not enough to quit a day job on day one. The yearly check-in fees are the steady paycheck. Those take 2 to 3 years to add up.

We keep our day jobs until Year 3. By then, Ways 1 and 2 together earn $460K to $656K per year. Starter money and the partner's hands-on work carry us until then. That is normal for an infrastructure business built without big investor money.

Vertical Energi
Your Fence Can Make Power