For the inquisitive minds at REGEN Energy Inc., the question was how to turn "dumb" buildings into "smart" ones.
For Toronto's Centennial College, being wooed to evaluate REGEN Energy's wireless energy-saving load-management devices for buildings was an opportunity to further the school's applied-research mandate.
When the college's Energy Institute and REGEN Energy, a Toronto-based small business with a staff of about 10, were first matched up in 2006, there was no guarantee their investigative fling would go beyond a few months.
But the partnership serves as a glowing example of how industries and colleges can parlay a seemingly fleeting relationship into a long-term bond.
Centennial is among just over half of the approximately 150 colleges across Canada involved in applied research, undertaking $100-million to $110-million in research activity annually, according to Lorna Malcolmson of the Association of Canadian Community Colleges.
In many cases, hooking up a business with a college for a particular project requires advance work, says Trish Dryden, Centennial's director of applied research and innovation and one of the founders of the Colleges Ontario Network for Industry Innovation — a consortium of 10 colleges that works to help business and industry become more competitive.
"What we do at Centennial's applied research centre is be a matchmaker with funding and try to figure out how to go after local, provincial and national grants to put everything together," says Ms. Dryden. "We need to ensure the research is ethical and appropriate, and meets industry partners' needs in terms of intellectual property — all the infrastructure that has to be put into place to try to make it as easy and fast as possible."
And time and resources are scarce, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that make up the bulk of industry members seeking out colleges' applied-research help.
"Most SMEs don't have research and development offices," says Ms. Dryden. "Usually it comes down to a bunch of [company personnel] saying, 'We're really into something, so how do we get the research we need without having the human or fiscal resources to take on this innovation?' Often an inventor who has something they want to get to the marketplace are trying to beat the clock, to move things forward quickly. One of the things colleges can do is we can move quite quickly on things, because of the way we're structured — we are pragmatic and can put together the right teams quickly."
In the case of REGEN Energy, headed by CEO Mark Kerbel, chief technology officer Roman Kulyk and executive vice-president Chris Beaver, the Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE) linked the company with Centennial to evaluate the company's innovative wireless device: EnviroGrid.
EnviroGrids automatically control electric loads like air conditioners, water heaters, lighting systems and battery chargers using what is called swarm-intelligence logic, says Mr. Beaver. Each controller is about the size of a cigarette package — a sort of wireless radio that sets up its own network to communicate with other controllers about when is a good time for an electrical load to run or take a break. Plugged into "loads," such as appliances, and wall plugs, controllers "take a dumb building and make it smart without a massive investment," he says.
Today, the technology is being used in many small to mid-sized industrial and commercial locations, including schools, hospitals and government buildings in Ontario.
But before EnviroGrid was patented and trademarked and hit the wider market, REGEN Energy sought third-party, independent validation.
Enter Herb Sinnock, manager of Centennial's Energy Institute at the School of Engineering Technology and Applied Science. OCE "brokered" a meeting between the college and REGEN Energy in the late spring of 2006.
Mr. Sinnock enlisted the help of Dave Clark, who graduated from Centennial's environmental protection technology program in 2005, and was already working as a project analyst with the Energy Institute.
