At Budderfly, we have a passion for energy efficiency. We have worked with thousands of businesses across the U.S. to reduce their energy consumption and carbon footprint. And we are always looking for ways to improve efficiency further.
The Budderfly Lab is a key part of how we innovate. Our lab in Connecticut helps us push the energy efficiency envelope in two major ways: we are constantly developing new technologies and testing out solutions that help cut energy usage.
The lab is foundational to our company, and it has existed in various forms at Budderfly for 10 years. We have conducted dozens of experiments in the lab and created patented technology. Though our experiments are not always successful—sometimes certain ideas are not practical or scalable—we always get valuable learnings. The solutions that work best end up implemented at customers’ locations to accelerate their energy savings. The ones that don’t work help us understand better what actually moves the needle and gives us ideas for future developments.
The Budderfly Lab works on both the software and hardware side. We can simulate certain environments to see how equipment works in a variety of scenarios. The lab has a lot of helpful tools to achieve this, including temperature sensors, air speed velocity testers, various forms of metering and monitoring, cable testers, and more.
Creating New Budderfly Technologies
The Lab is where we have developed some of our unique, industry-leading solutions: our Budderfly thermostat, light switches and outlets, occupancy sensing power packs, and all kinds of metering technology. We not only develop these tools in the Lab, but they also go through rigorous quality assurance testing to ensure they work well and deliver measurable savings to benefit our customers.
We also use the lab to develop custom solutions for problems we see at customer locations. Our energy system collects millions of valuable data points daily that help us identify opportunities for improved efficiency. At one quick-serve restaurant, for example, we learned a drive-through window heater designed to keep employees warm was being blasted constantly and, as a result, actually creating an uncomfortable work environment. Plus, it was wasting loads of energy.
We were determined to solve this, so we used the Lab to design and test a special control system for the drive-through window that is now implemented in customer locations to help regulate the air temperature for employees—and to minimize energy waste. Now in the Lab, we are continuing to iterate on this product as we develop an even more innovative Version 2.
Testing Energy Efficiency Solutions
We also use the lab to test solutions developed by other companies to validate if they meet our strict criteria and might be viable solutions to bring to our customers as well. We have tested countless different technologies in the lab, from new LED bulbs to chemical additives claiming to aid HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning) efficiency, from electrical panels to nano materials capable of generating heat.
The Budderfly Lab was even recently visited by Connecticut governor Ned Lamont!
The Budderfly Lab is not our only location for testing and experimentation. We also have some amazing partnerships that allow us to test on larger scales and in labs with certain restaurant equipment we do not store on-site. But no matter where we are testing, our goal is always the same: to ensure we are bringing the best, most forward-thinking energy efficiency solutions to our customers—and to help the planet by reducing carbon emissions.