US engineer on a mission to smart up buildings

Thanks to a Chinese-US joint program on clean energy research, Derek Cowburn, founder and chief executive officer of Indiana-based energy innovator LumenCache, visited Shenzhen for the first time in 2016.

Lured by Shenzhen’s manufacturing industry and eager to learn more about it, Cowburn applied to join HAX — one of the world’s largest hardware accelerators based in Futian District — and was accepted. He arrived in Shenzhen that year and started working and living in the city.

Cowburn created a hardware product that replaces the way we power the inside of buildings. His platform replaces traditional high-voltage AC power distribution in buildings with a new standard more appropriate to the low power needs and digital capabilities of electronic devices, such as LED lights.

“The piece that I’m working on is the DC networking. Instead of using alternating current that we’ve been using for 130 years, we use direct current which is what our electronics, solar panels and batteries use,” explained Cowburn.

Distinct from the other companies that HAX typically takes in and most of which are early-stage hardware startups, Cowburn’s team is quite experienced in smart building.

“My career started out building automation systems, the computers that run and operate buildings. I was an intern at a pharmaceutical campus in 1988 and was surrounded by really bright people in the smart building field. There were 4,000 scientists, engineers and businesspeople on this campus. They did manufacturing and research. The building controls were more complex than the controls that made the drugs,” he recalled.

Ten years later, Cowburn moved on to do consulting for a large accounting firm with big data sets. Cowburn, who has a very strong computer background and a mechanical engineering degree, ended up buying New Jersey’s largest building controls company.

“I had about 15 people at the time and we were doing about 2 million dollars a year. First year 5 million, the next 7 million. We developed very quickly. In fact, that company was ultimately purchased by Schneider Electric,” he said.

He has always been frustrated about the way the world is heading. “Right now, most companies have all these wireless products, which are very easy for startups to make. The problem is they never quite meet the reliability mark and they are not as efficient as a wired solution,” said Cowburn.

The engineer explained that a wired device only needs energy when it needs to talk, while a wireless device has to keep sending data to communicate with the other pieces. “So, if you look at a wireless bulb, it typically consumes about half a watt when it is off. It’s because it has to listen and talk all the time to wait for someone to hit the light switch or to hit the smartphone.”

“Our system doesn’t need to do that. This drew the interest of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Chinese housing ministry because they realized that our product can improve efficiency,” he said.

As an expert in the field for a long time, Cowburn does a lot of public speaking and was introduced to Paras Loomba, founder of the Global Himalayan Expedition, which is a group seeking to provide access to clean energy, education and wireless connectivity through solar power to help improve the living standards of rural populations.

This January, Global Himalayan Expedition took Cowburn’s product up to the villages in the Himalayas and lit them up in a more efficient way.

Loomba is from India and the two first talked two years ago. Cowburn kept telling Loomba to wait for his second generation product, but Loomba couldn’t wait anymore and finally told Cowburn: “I don’t want to wait any more. I just want the product that you have.”

“So, we sent him the products that we already had, and the product that we have is the prototype. That’s another reason we have been very busy here (in Futian) since Chinese New Year because we are releasing a new version of the first product,” said Cowburn.

“They took LumenCache up there. Loomba was so impressed and told me that normally they could get to about 30 meters of wire before the light starts to dim. But, ou system goes 100-plus meter and no dimming problem occurs. So they asked me fo more products,” Cowburn said beaming with pride.

One of the things Cowburn is passionate about is helping the environment. “Part of the reason that drives me to do thi is because I feel strongly tha the product we have can help lower the energy requirement for buildings, and meet China’ requirement of having 20 per cent savings by 2020.”

Over the two years that Cow burn and his team have been in Shenzhen, they have been introduced and given opportu nities for government grants “There are many opportuni ties for foreigners to bring their experience and knowl edge here. I think it’s almos ideal for people like myself someone who is already much more experienced,” said Cow burn.

In October last year, they received a grant from the Nan jing city government to develop AI applications for their plat form. “We got the first piece o the grant, which is helping u to get the hardware into build ings. As soon as we are done with that, we can start devel oping the software and imple menting it. We had to build a whole new hardware standard for building wiring before A can truly succeed.”

Cowburn’s team is also cooperating with the city o Zhaoqing, which contacted them through the incubato TechCode. The latter found ou about them and asked them to