A Boise food truck and battery company have partnered to go green
Sid Gauby’s coffee grinder whirs as espresso trickles out of the Slow River Coffee espresso machine. Slow River has all the sounds (and rich aromas) of a traditional coffee shop with the mobility of a food truck. But while Gauby is pulling espresso shots and pouring coffees, there’s one aspect of a typical food truck sound that’s absent: the noisy generator.
Most food trucks operate using diesel generators to power appliances such as fridges and cash registers. The generators are sturdy and reliable, but they emit fumes along with their constant hum. And Slow River requires a lot of electricity, thanks to its espresso machine and coffee brewer, which Gauby said pull 220 volts each.
“When you heat water it requires a lot of energy,” he said in an interview. “It’s pretty hefty in the form of a gas-powered generator.”
So Gauby found a way to make Slow River run a little more efficiently. He recently switched the coffee operations in his Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van to run on renewable energy — though the van itself still runs on diesel — including solar panels and a set of batteries built by Joule Case, a local startup.
That’s something unique in the food truck world, though it is becoming more common in larger cities like Los Angeles and Portland, according to industry experts.
Collaboration sparked at Treefort
Gauby and Joule Case co-founder Alex Livingston met at Treefort Music Fest.
“We’re walking along with a dolly full of batteries to take down there to power the little vendor station,” Livingston said in an interview. “We stopped for some coffee, and (Gauby’s) like, ‘What have you got there?’”
According to Gauby, Joule Case’s stackable battery system seemed like the perfect way to make the leap to renewable energy, which he had been considering for some time.
“I’ve just been burning fuel, you know,” said Gauby, who has operated Slow River for six years in the Treasure Valley. “The price and the capabilities, the battery storage haven’t been there (to convert our generator). With (Joule Case) we could get to that point where it made economic sense as well.”
The battery tech startup, which recently received half a million dollars in funding, created a custom 12-kilowatt lithium battery inverter system for Slow River. Livingston said Joule Case has another renewable energy food truck customer in Seattle, a restaurant group with a fleet of a dozen food truck. Still, Slow River is one of Joule Case’s “guinea pigs” for the batteries, which are also used as backup generators for homes or energy sources for camping or RV users.
“Traditionally we just manufacture (our standard stackable battery) product and we take it out the door,” Livingston said. “But Sid had a particularly large power need.”
Renewable energy infrastructure can be pricey. Gauby said his batteries’ upfront cost is about double what he’d pay for a diesel generator — which typically cost between $8,500 and $10,000 each — before tax savings. But he expects to make that money back, though it’s too soon to calculate exactly how much he’s saving with renewable energy.
“I think the cost to run the generator with maintenance fuel is about $3 an hour,” Gauby said. “And so, electricity, it’s probably going to be (about) 45 cents.”
Guaby plans to install solar panels on the van’s roof to recharge some of his battery units, but for now he recharges them at home using electricity. His current setup will run his appliances for six to eight hours without recharging, which Gauby said is enough for about 400 drinks. So far, he hasn’t used all his battery power during a single day of work.
And despite the cost of setting up the renewable energy, Gauby said customers won’t see prices go up. (A typical mocha at Slow River costs about $5.)
Battery power makes better ambiance
Slow River’s customers don’t always pick up on the change right away.
“They pretty much they come up and say, ‘Are you doing something different?’” Gauby said. “And then all of a sudden when I tell them, ‘Oh, well, we’re not running a generator anymore,’ they go, ‘Oh, that’s it!’”
Gauby is also the head of the Southern Idaho Food Truck Association. He said he thinks losing the generators could create more opportunities for food trucks around the Treasure Valley.
“People love food trucks, but they’re tired of the noise and the smell,” he said. “They don’t want to have to talk over the generator, and they want to be able to experience things without the extra smell.”
For a while, Gauby said, the noise and the fumes were considered “part of the ambiance of food trucks.” But he said local businesses are taking those drawbacks into consideration before partnering with trucks or hosting rallies.
“Being able to run silently really opens up a lot of doors,” Gauby said. “I think there are more (renewable energy food trucks) coming. I think (Livingston is) working with a couple other food trucks that are making that transition now, or even starting out with a battery.”
Gauby said Slow River could serve as an example for other local food truck owners. Ultimately, his goal is to minimize his food truck’s impact on the environment.
“I don’t think the footprint of a food truck is as much as having a brick and mortar, sure, where you’re running 24 hours a day,” he said. “But still, I mean everybody’s got to do their part, and I’m trying to do mine.”
This story was originally published September 9, 2020 at 4:00 AM.
