Transaera

Transaera is a Somerville, Massachusetts company developing energy-efficient cooling, heating and dehumidification equipment for commercial buildings. Its systems are built around metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), a class of highly porous solid desiccant materials that passively adsorb moisture from incoming air. Because dehumidification through conventional condensation on a cold evaporator coil accounts for roughly half the electricity used by a traditional air conditioner, separating moisture removal from cooling is the core of the company's efficiency claim.

The company's current commercial product is a Dedicated Outdoor Air System (DOAS) designed for rooftop installation on commercial buildings such as warehouses and big-box retail. It supplies 100 percent outdoor air, operates as a heat pump in both cooling and heating modes, allows independent cooling and dehumidification, and is fully electric, in a footprint and weight comparable to conventional units. Transaera states the DOAS is twice as efficient as conventional equipment; press coverage of its seed-2 financing reported a 40 percent reduction in overall energy consumption and roughly double the system efficiency. Earlier work targeted residential and room air conditioners, including a design using the lower-global-warming-potential refrigerant R32 that the company said could have one-fifth the climate impact of traditional units.

The company began manufacturing large rooftop air conditioning, ventilation and heating systems and has deployed its first larger DOAS unit for commercial buildings. It has been covered by outlets including The Wall Street Journal, Scientific American, MIT Technology Review, TechCrunch, Kiplinger, The Energy Mix, The New York Times and PBS/WHYY's "The Pulse."

Founding story

Sorin Grama, who co-founded off-grid refrigeration company Promethean Power Systems in 2007 and helped start the Greentown Labs incubator in 2010, returned to MIT to teach at MIT D-Lab and serve as entrepreneur-in-residence at the Martin Trust Center after stepping down as Promethean CEO in 2015. MIT Energy Initiative deputy director Rob Stoner introduced Grama to MIT chemistry professor Mircea Dincă, who had researched metal-organic frameworks since joining the MIT faculty in 2010 and had developed MOFs with pores sized to trap water molecules. Grama initially considered the material for refrigeration before focusing on air conditioning, motivated in part by the Global Cooling Prize competition announced in 2018. Transaera was formally founded at the beginning of 2018 by Grama, Dincă and mechanical engineer Matt Dorson, a former Promethean colleague who served as CTO, and the founders supported early work with about $2 million in state and federal grants including from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center.

Business model

Transaera develops and sells advanced heat pump and dedicated outdoor air systems for commercial buildings, and has begun manufacturing rooftop air conditioning, ventilation and heating equipment. As of 2022 the company also envisioned licensing its MOF-based technology to established manufacturers with existing production facilities and distribution channels, including potential partners such as Carrier and the New York startup Windmill.

Sale of rooftop DOAS and heat pump equipment to commercial building owners and operators; the company has also described licensing its technology to incumbent HVAC manufacturers as a path to market.

Traction

Transaera deployed its first larger commercial DOAS unit for buildings such as warehouses and has begun manufacturing large rooftop systems. Amazon signed a deal for its rooftop heat pumps at an undisclosed number of commercial buildings, with the deployment reported in Amazon e-commerce warehouses. The company was one of eight Global Cooling Prize finalists and is a tenant of Greentown Labs. Reported performance includes a 40 percent reduction in overall energy consumption and roughly twice the efficiency of conventional systems.

Latest developments

Transaera announced the appointment of David Eisenbud as Executive Vice President of Sales, citing more than 25 years scaling clean energy businesses at SunPower, SunEdison and DSD Renewables. It was featured in Kiplinger coverage of the future of air conditioning, which noted its deployment with Amazon in e-commerce warehouses, and in The Energy Mix on humidity management by heat pumps. The company is offering a limited initial production quantity of its DOAS to select customers for trials.