With a family of six, Bob Guimarin had three “power problems”: 1) too many cords, 2) too many outages and 3) not enough ports in the van during road trips. Being a serial entrepreneur, Guimarin came up with a way to simplify power management and reduce reliance on external sources.

“There was always a struggle for power, and we were juggling different devices, trying to figure out how to manage it,” he says. “So I thought, ‘Let’s rethink this from the ground up. Why do we have so many power sources everywhere, and why do we need them?’”

In 2017, Guimarin formed Off The Wall Energy, a Rancho Cordova-based device startup more than a decade in the making. The company builds the personal energy platform, or PEP, a smart power management system designed to put power usage in consumers’ hands.

The main benefits, he says, are lower energy costs and automatic backup power. Using high-quality prismatic LFP batteries with 5,000 to 8,000 cycles, the PEP runs 24/7 once plugged in, delivering uninterrupted electricity to attached devices and appliances through AC or DC output ports. The unit also extends battery power when connected to non-grid sources (e.g. solar panels or solar shades). Guimarin believes every household, owned or rented, can reduce CO2 emissions by over 1,000 pounds a year.

Many AC-powered devices continue to draw power even when turned off. This is known as “vampire load.” The PEP solution helps prevent this, he says, by using a DC-to-DC power cord, which avoids the energy waste associated with AC-to-DC conversion and reduces vampire loads. After multiple design changes over the past 12 years, Guimarin credits his wife for helping find a design that would be attractive in the home rather than just another “bulky pickup truck battery backup unit.”

Off The Wall Energy won the 2024 Sacramento Regional Competition for the StartUp World Cup. Charlotte Danielsson, co-founder of the HumanBulb nonprofit accelerator program, which runs the World Cup, believes Guimarin’s technology has huge market potential.

The startup, which also went through the HumanBulb accelerator, allows renters to be part of the move toward renewable energy, for example, by connecting PEP devices to balcony solar.

“You can use off-the-grid technology to power things in your apartment, which is not normally available,” Danielsson says. “Renters are usually tied into what the building has developed.”

Danielsson also notes that, if widely adopted by public organizations, these smart devices could help ease hardships for lower-income communities as environmental challenges intensify.

But, for Guimarin, securing early investment to produce commercial units has been a challenge. He estimates that with $75,000, he can build five fully functional early commercial units, which will allow Off The Wall Energy to demonstrate the product’s value to potential investors.

“Early demonstration of PEP prototypes and limited media awareness created an overwhelming public response to buy the product when commercially available,” he says. “But we need that initial investment to take things to the next level.”

Beyond the next level, Guimarin envisions this device going global. With reliable energy solutions out of reach for much of the world’s population, he says, PEP could help bridge the gap.

“Community solar can only provide so much, and it’s not enough to meet the global demand for clean power,” he says. “But we’re working on a solution that can change that.”

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