http://pesn.com/2005/10/18/9600189_Krystal_Planet/ You are here: PureEnergySystems.com > News > Oct. 18, 2005

Krystal Planet is Alluring the Mainstream Consumer Market for Renewable Energy

Energy Star partner has 1,400 independent dealers selling wind, solar, biodiesel and hydrogen fuel cell systems. They encourage anyone to join now to make money, save money, and help clean the planet.

"We are the world's leading Referral Based Marketer of wind, solar, hydrogen and energy efficient products for residential and small business applications.  You can become a dealer for minimal startup cost, very low overhead, and lucrative compensation on sales of products that save the average household $150 per month, with a payback of ~9 months."

-- Troy Helming, CEO and President of Krystal Planet

by Sterling D. Allan
Pure Energy Systems News - Exclusive
Copyright © 2005

Company home page features a 1-minute video to overview their offerings. Krystal Planet product sales from Jan - Aug 2005

Disclosure: PES Network Inc. registered as a planet patron "dealer" for Krystal Planet Oct. 17, 2005, after interviewing Troy Helming, just prior to publishing this story about Krystal Planet.  You are welcome and encouraged to sign up in our downline if we are the first who introduced you to Krystal Planet.  Account name: PESNetworkInc

Today in Free Energy™, October 18, 2005 (high) (mp3) (low) (6 min) - Features Krystal Planet. (OSEN)

KANSAS CITY, KANSAS, USA -- Krystal Planet specializes in providing its customers and dealers with energy-saving appliances and green-tag certificates, while also providing them with a way to earn money in the process of telling others about the energy products and services they have found useful, all of which help move people away from oil-dependence and toward a cleaner planet.  While the company is based in the United States, it services customers globally.


Explosive Growth

Founded just 18 months ago on International Earth day (April 27), the company is already experiencing a 50% increase in total sales every two months for the past six months, and recently achieved Energy Start partner status. (Ref.) (Ref.)

With nearly 4,400 paying customers, 1,275 of which are dealers, the rate of customers turning into dealers is nearly 30%.  Around 40% of their customers are repeat buyers on a monthly basis.  If someone is convinced enough to buy a product, and it performs well enough within their expectation, they are going to want to tell others about it, and they might as well get a commission from those referrals.


Finding a Niche

Company founder, CEO, and president, Troy Helming, has discovered what many companies are discovering: that clean energy can save customers money, while also solving the problems of oil-dependence.  That double package makes for a compelling sales advantage in a highly competitive marketplace.  What Helming has also discovered is that if purchasing and using these products does not require a scientific mind, and if they can be made as simple as screwing in a light bulb or plugging in a toaster, this will bring them within reach of the average home owner of average technical literacy. Krystal Planet has mainstreamed renewable energy for home applications.


Product Line

Krystal Planet sells around 230 products related to energy savings, many of which are Energy Star approved.  They include green tag certificates, automobile fuel-savings catalyst, a tankless water heater, and a full home power generating system using wind and solar.  The payback time on these products is often in the region of just one or two years, sometimes less, enabling tremendous energy bill savings thereafter.


Last Saturday the company launched what they believe could be their best-seller yet -- a portable furnace. Helming says it could pay for itself in just one winter, considering how high energy prices are projected to be this coming season due to the hurricane damage to the U.S. fuel infrastructure, as well as the peak oil phenomenon which was already staring us in the face before Katrina and Rita came along.

The device is called the Krystal Portable Furnace. About the size of an end table, it is a portable unit, and is decorated with an oak-cabinet look. It uses infrared thermal heating and can heat 1000 square feet for just $25.00/month. Being infrared, it heats up everything in the room without drying out the air like conventional heaters. "Elderly people love it," said Helming, whose friend acquired the rights to the technology which has already experienced twenty years of sales in Kansas City. Now Krystal Planet has exclusive distribution rights for all direct marketing of the device.

A competitive unit similar to the furnace might cost in the region of $1000 elsewhere.  Krystal Planet retails theirs for $599, and provides it wholesale to dealers for just $449.

"Plug it in, turn your house thermostat down to 60, and the portable furnace to a comfortable 69, and that will be adequate to heat the home most of the time," said Helming.  Radiant heat is felt much more readily, compared to forced air heat, so a higher thermostat setting is not necessary.


The company's best-selling product at present is actually more philanthropic in nature, accounting for 40% of their sales.  Their green tag program enables a person to commit to pay $30 per month, with the guarantee that that money will go toward the installation of a utility-scale wind turbine. (See "Krystal Planet Green Tags" inset below.)

This program, though, is not without additional benefits to the customer.  In addition to feeling good about moving away from dependence on oil toward green energy, U.S. customers can get a tax deduction.  All green tags customers receive a $5.00 valued gift certificate which can either go toward fluorescent bulbs, or toward Starbuck's coffee.  And, for every person the customer signs up under the green tag program, they receive a $10 credit.  So by signing up three additional customers, their monthly $30 payment is covered.  Anything over that becomes income for them.

The green tag commitment amounts to supporting 1000 kilowatt-hours of clean energy injected into the grid.  A $20 and $10/month option are also available.

One turbine costs $2 million to install.  Krystal Planet needs $850,000 in order to finance the purchase.  Helming says the company has raised $200,000 so far, toward its first purchase in Kansas or in Hawaii.

The green tag funds collected from customers in other countries goes toward the installation of a utility-scale wind turbine in that country.

The next best-selling product is their exclusive Green Machine "Fitch" fuel catalyst, which purports to boost mileage by 12 - 20%, while reducing pollution by 25%, based on a metal alloy installed on the fuel line.  The technology has been independently verified by twenty different labs, and has received rave reviews by numerous magazines.  It comes with a 250,000-mile warranty.

"When the price of gas was at $2.20/gallon, we calculated a savings of $30 to $40 per month for a person who drives 18,000 miles a year; and SUV's were saving between $50 and $70 per month", said Helming.  "The payback time is between 6 - 10 months", he said.

The company has a direct marketing exclusive on that product as well, which they retail at $299.


Their third best-seller is their Tankless Water Heater, which is purported to cut water-heating bills by 60%, and which has a 10 - 18-month payback time.  "Why heat all that water and keep it warm during the many hours when you are not using it, especially when you are away," Helming said. 

"You can expect to pay between $800 and $1000 at Home Depot or Lowes for something comparable.  We sell ours for $299."

The problem with tankless heaters is that when enough people begin using them in a municipality, they increase the peak electrical load (e.g. all those people taking showers in the morning or evening, or doing their laundry when they get home from work), which requires the grid to increase its generating capacity.  The water tank model could be thought of as an energy storage system, buffering the energy consumption away from peak energy load times.  The grid has to build to handle the peak load, and much of the non-peak energy is vented (wasted).  So if a person's intent in getting a tankless heater is to decrease their overall footprint of energy pollution on the planet, they will want to use the hot water appliance during off-peak times. (See Tankless Water Heaters are Brutal on the Grid When Popularized.)


Krystal Planet's other major product is what they call Krystal Hydrogen System, and amounts to a home power system run by wind and solar, in conjunction with an electrolyzing unit, fuel cell module, batteries, and inverters.  In addition to powering a home, the hydrogen generated can run up to two energy-efficient cars that have been converted to run on hydrogen.  At $150,000, the sticker price on this one keeps it from being a high seller, but it is a great concept.

Most people who are that serious about grid independence are probably more inclined to shop around for the various tailor components, rather than purchase a system through a direct-marketing arrangement, unless they've earned a lot of points as a dealer and can get it at a substantial discount.


The company also offers a low-price guarantee on residential wind systems.  They guarantee the lowest price or they will rebate the difference.

Their additional products include: compact fluorescent bulbs; power planners; programmable thermostats; acrylic caulk; solar charging station for PDAs, cell phones, laptops; light sensor; light timer; appliance timer; exhaust fans;


History and Destiny

Growing up with a natural interest in things technical, reading Popular Mechanics, and having a dad who had installed a solar heating system on his dream home in the early '80's, it wasn't a huge leap for Helming to become involved himself in alternative energy.

The thing that transformed alternative energy from a hobby into a business was his reading of an article that pointed out that the three windiest states in the U.S. could power the entire country, with just 18% of the land mass of those three states covered with wind turbines.  He happened to live in one of the states mentioned: Kansas.

He sold his telecommunications company and in 1999  founded a company that specialized in utility-scale wind energy generation.  After installing 300 megawatts worth of power (enough to power around 60,000 homes), he sold the company in 2003.  He wanted to go for a more grassroots approach to solving the emerging energy crisis.

Since then, in addition to founding Krystal Planet, he has written a book, The Clean Power Revolution, in which he sets forth what he calls "The Freedom Plan." That plan proposes a means by which the United States (or any country) could become completely free of oil-dependence in just ten years, without any government program involved -- using a market-based, customer-appealing approach.  Audio files and white papers are available for free from the Krystal Planet website, as well as from a site Helming launched specifically for the project: TheFreedomPlan.org

Helming sees himself, among others, as providing a key role in the leadership to bring about the fulfillment of this plan. Helming is looking for energy companies and other companies to add their endorsement to the plan, to help give it stature and to bring about its fulfillment.

He says implementing this plan would "convert America to 100% clean renewable power and save the U.S. economy $20 Trillion by 2025."


Up-Coming Technologies

Helming is a friend of cutting edge energy technologies that are not yet recognized by the mainstream.  He recently spoke for the Tesla Society in San Francisco.  As those emerging technologies become consumer-ready, he is likely to include them in the portfolio of products available.


Easy to Become Dealer

What does it take to become a dealer?  "Twenty dollars", says Helming, adding that that is a per-month charge to maintain the dealer status.  Dealers are then given access to wholesale pricing for their own purchases, and they get the difference for sales they make to others, while Krystal Planet handles the collecting of money, and drop-shipping of the product.

In a general sense, the company is a multi-level marketing arrangement, "but not according to more strict definitions," says Helming.  The company doesn't pay dealers based on the level of sales below them in their down-line.  "We emphasize a group approach to success, rather than a model in which a few people get very rich while the rest do not make a return on their investment."

Upon sign-up, the dealer is given a website entrance automatically generated by Krystal Planet, where the new dealer can refer his friends and acquaintances, and then receive a commission off sales made.  Checks are sent out each week.

Helming considers dealerships as being a means to create financial freedom for those who will work the program, and potentially the "very best business opportunity available anywhere in the world" for those who really apply themselves.


The Timing Couldn't be Better

"We've seen a four-fold increase in inquiries since Katrina and Rita," said Helming.  "These disasters have been a boon for our business."  He pointed out that as people wake up to a realization of our nations vulnerability because of our reliance on oil, then clean, renewable energy becomes an obvious solution whose time has come for them.  He sees his company specifically, and his Freedom Plan in general as offering a solution that will resolve that problem.

# # #

Krystal Planet Green Tags

SOURCES

• Phone Interview with CEO, Troy Helming, Oct. 17, 2005
• http://www.krystal-planet.com info submitted Oct. 11
• https://map.krystal-planet.com/enroll/termsandconditions.htm
• http://krystal-planet.com/company.asp
• Krystal Planet Announces Explosive Product Sales Growth - Krystal Planet Corporation, an EnergySTAR(R) partner, announces today that six months into the launch of its catalog, sales have far exceeded expectations. New product sales grew by 86% per month (1,032% annualized) during the period. Existing product sales (primarily the Green MachineSM fuel catalyst) also showed strong sales growth. Overall, product sales grew by an average 52% per month (624% annualized) from March 1st through August 31st, 2005
• Krystal Planet approved as ENERGY STAR Partner - Krystal Planet, creator of America's 1st nationwide network of energy efficiency experts, was recently approved as an ENERGY STAR partner. This gives Krystal Planet access to DOE & EPA resources as part of the ENERGY STAR program for its 1,400 independent dealers selling wind, solar, biodiesel and hydrogen fuel cell systems.
• Krystal Planet announces 1st Sales of Hydrogen Fuel Cells - Krystal Planet Corporation, an ENERGY STAR Partner, announces today the sale of its 3rd hydrogen fuel cell in as many months. This marks a critical milestone for the launch this fall of the world's 1st turnkey home hydrogen solution: the Krystal Hydrogen System(SM). It also establishes Krystal Planet as one of the few marketers of fuel cells to residential customers and brings The Freedom Plan(SM) closer to reality, which can convert America to 100% clean renewable energy in 10 years.

Page composed by Sterling D. Allan Oct. 17, 2005
Last updated November 12, 2005