Manitowoc Solar Lighting Company Celebrates New Product With Governor’s Visit

A company based in Manitowoc publicly revealed a new form of solar powered LED lighting Monday that its inventor says has the potential to revamp the industry. He also says the mid-sized northeastern Wisconsin city is a good place to do that work and officials are hopeful it could give the community a boost.

Energy Bank founder and CEO Neal Verfuerth said the new FUSION system is cheaper and more efficient than other solar powered lighting because it takes power directly from solar panels to lighting units instead of transforming it into an alternating current and sending it through the power grid.

“Everything on the market today that is solar lighting has a battery and a lot of expensive apparatuses to make it grid-connected,” Verfuerth said. “This doesn’t have that.”

Energy Bank got off the ground in 2014 with a state economic development loan of $250,000. It had eight employees then and now employs 18 full-time and four part-time workers.

Gov. Scott Walker attended the public unveiling. He told a crowd of employees and businesspeople who gathered at the factory that Energy Bank is a good example of the type of business that will help, “keep more of the graduates here.”

“And as we need to in Manitowoc County and in northeastern Wisconsin and across the state, we’re going to need to attract more millennials,” Walker said.

Verfuerth said the city of 33,000 was a good place for him to locate.

“There is a great manufacturing base here and a great workforce,” he said, adding that logistics played into his decision before opening the company in 2014.

“It is in the center of the country,” he said, “for shipping products anywhere from here is generally two to three days.”

Manitowoc Mayor Justin Nickels said he hopes having growing companies like Energy Bank will help attract a new generation of workers and resident taxpayers.

“It is more inventing and creating, that is what really attracts the younger generation,” he said.

Moreover, Nickels said, “It is just neat to see that this product made in Manitowoc, Wisconsin is going all around the country.”

The company says the FUSION system is already in use in factories and some big box stores.