Doctoral Candidate Chad Corbin has officially become the newest member of the CUE enterprise. Corbin is currently completing his PhD in Civil Engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder, working under the direction of Dr. Gregor Henze, a CUE founding partner.

Midwest Cleantech 2009, featuring emerging, cutting-edge technologies in clean energy, was held at the Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago, IL on November 23 and 24. Midwest Cleantech (www.midwestcleantech2009.com) was attended by an international mix of early stage investors, researchers, entrepreneurs, clean tech-focused venture capitalists, financiers, and corporate R&D and business development executives. CUE was announced as one of the finalists in the Innovation Competition and offered an exhibit at the conference. Having placed in the top three, CEO Vince Cushing gave a short presentation before receiving the second place award.

Professor Henze received an invitation by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to organize and speak at the National Science Foundation Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation (CMMI) Workshop on MULTIFUNCTIONCTIONAL MATERIALS AND DISTRIBUTED RENEWABLE ENERGY FOR SUSTAINABLE INFRASTRUCTURE. The workshop was held on Monday June 22, 2009, at the Hawaii Convention Center in Honolulu. It was a pre-conference workshop associated with the NSF CMMI Engineering Research and Innovation Conference http://www.cmmigranteeconference.org/ held that same week, which he attended as well. His speech on June 22 was to the topic of advanced control strategies for commercial buildings.

CUE is excited to announce that 49 buildings have enrolled in their Summer Demonstration, a signficant first step in creating a Mini-Smart-Grid (MSG) in downtown Chicago.  The demonstration itself is set to kick-off on June 1, 2009.  Proprietary CUE software will optimize the buildings and provide real time information to both the buildings and the grid.  The successful implementation of this system will be a major accomplishment for Smart Grid everywhere.

CUE began its highly anticipated summer 2009 Demonstration Program at a meeting hosted by BOMA/Chicago.  BOMA/Chicago executive VP Michael Cornicelli kicked off the meeting at Chicago’s prestigious Metropolitan Club high above Chicago in the Sears Tower.

CUE’s BOMA Chicago Presentation: A Packed House!

More than 170 building management executives and engineers participated in this interactive meeting.  CUE adviser Bill Hederman started the CUE presentation by introducing the six CUE team members present and providing background information about the importance of demonstration programs to energy technology development.  He also addressed the CUE demonstration, in particular.  Hederman was a member of the leadership team on a major RAND Corporation project that developed important findings about success factors for energy technology demonstrations.  The principles RAND developed have guided the Department of Energy and many other technology development organizations for decades.

Next, Professor Gregor Henze, of the University of Colorado, Boulder, the new site for the first city-wide Smart Grid technology implementation, presented a technical discussion of the first CUE application, the thermal mass and building model technology aspects of the CUE proprietary system.  Professor Henze is a professor of architectural engineering and CUE’s lead technologist on building technology.  He geared his presentation to the level of professionals active in the building industry, and the audience clearly got it.

CUE CEO Vince Cushing wrapped up the formal presentation by discussing the next steps for the demonstration.  He focused on how buildings could sign up for the demonstration – or find out if they were good candidates to participate.  Cushing then opened the discussion to questions, which led to a lively additional 20 minutes of discussion.

Other CUE team members present were Andy Whiting, VP of IT development, a former member of IBM’s staff, Erin O’Brien, VP of Organizational Development and a former manager at Ernst & Young, and Beth Cushing, Director of Development and a former staffer in prominent Chicago businessman and philanthropist Richard H. Driehaus’s business enterprise.

As the crowd left, the forms for demonstration participation piled up, and by the end of the day it looked as though more buildings were nominated for the demo than the 50 slots offered.  CUE has already begun the process of qualifying the buildings for participation and welcomes additional nominations as that process continues.  For those not included in the initial demo, CUE made clear that as soon as the summer 2009 demo is successfully completed, additional expansion will proceed.

Members of the CUE Team
From left to right: Andy Whiting, VP & Founder; Vince Cushing, CEO & Founder; Dr. Gregor Henze of the University of Colorado at Boulder, Technology Advisor & Founder; Erin O’Brien, VP of Organizational Development; Bill Hederman, Industry and Marketing Advisor & Founder; Beth Cushing, Director of Development.

For questions regarding the CUE 2009 Summer Demonstration or to express interest in participation, contact Beth Cushing at bcushing@cleanurbanenergy.com.

In a letter to its 270 member buildings, BOMA/Chicago invited building managers to attend a program introducing CUE’s 2009 Summer Demonstration.  Both CUE and BOMA are optimistic that the conference will result in the enrollment of 50 large commercial buildings for the Demonstration.

CUE and the University of Colorado Boulder (UCB), led by Dr. Gregor Henze, formalized their collaboration to research, develop, demonstrate, and commercialize the many ways in which commercial buildings can integrate their operations with electric grid operations and markets. 

BOMA/Chicago committed to sponsor and jointly solicit grant funding for CUE’s 2009 Summer Demonstration.  Both seek to advance energy efficiency in the urban core of the Chicago metropolitan area in order to further the adoption of CUE technology throughout the United States.

Bill Hederman was recently elected to return to the board of the nation’s number one ranked school for public policy analysis.  He left for one term under term limit rules and was asked to return.  He has served as the Chairman of the Governance Committee for this group.

In mid-July, CUE’s technical team met in Chicago to complete and validate the thermal mass optimization model for the first of five Chicago demonstration sites. This technology represents a significant first step toward CUE’s long-term objective of 20-40% reduction in HVAC operating expenses for commercial office buildings.

The CUE technology enables building engineers to optimize their HVAC operations to take advantage of very low electric grid prices at night and to sell into grid markets during periods of very high prices during the workday.

As a next step, the building engineer will gradually implement the CUE model in actual HVAC operations, garnering energy dollars from participation in the PJM Economic Demand Response Program, while monitoring thermal comfort to assure complete tenant satisfaction.

This first demonstration site is a LEED-certified building located in downtown Chicago. LEED certification requires that the facility already implement extensive energy efficiency measures. CUE has four other commercial building demonstration sites in various stages of progress – three in downtown Chicago and one on Chicago’s North Side.

CUE team takes a break while on site at building number 1.
From left to right: Dr. Clemens Felsmann of the Institut für Technische Gebäudeausrüstung, Marty Laferrara of Precision Controls Systems of Chicago, Dr. James Braun of Purdue University, Vince Cushing of CUE, Bill Hederman of CUE, Andy Whiting of CUE, Dr. Gregor Henze of the University of Colorado Boulder, and Sandro Plamp of the University of Nebraska.