Update on Energy Innovation Efforts: Introducing VERDs!

We’ve got some good updates on the energy innovation work at The Plant, including a jazzy new name for the effort! Initially overviewed here, this project is an ongoing collaboration between Bubbly Dynamics LLC – the owner/operator and design team behind The Plant – and the Strategic Partnerships for the Advancement of Research and Knowledge (SPARK) Center at DePaul University. 

Presently, there is no model to support adoption of efficient and sustainable thermal energy management in industrial spaces, at the expense of business and environment. Waste heat generated by refrigeration and air conditioning is typically vented into the atmosphere rather than captured and reused; at the same time, process heat is required to make products. As such, we are proposing a real-world energy recovery, storage, and reuse system, using The Plant as the test case. 

The Visualization + Energy Recovery and Distribution System (VERDs) project will transform invisible waste heat into a tracked, managed resource at The Plant. Through deploying a sensor network, the VERDs project includes a real-time open-source digital twin of the building that will visualize real-time energy flows and use this data to inform a heat pump system that will redistribute, consume, and store waste heat throughout the building. 

Building on The Plant’s existing system of temperature monitors and HVAC controls, the VERDs project involves deploying a sophisticated array of sensors  throughout the building to record temperature, humidity, occupancy, and a variety of other datapoints. The real-time data will be visualized through a digital twin: a precise 3D virtual representation of the building’s physical environment. To date, sensors have been installed by undergraduate DePaul students and currently record real-time data throughout The Plant, and the digital twin is in its preliminary stages. 

The digital twin will be available online and as an interactive display in The Plant’s lobby, providing a window into the building’s thermal and electrical energy flows. It will serve as an educational tool that demonstrates how efficiency improvements can close the loops of waste and energy in an urban industrial setting. By open-sourcing this approach, VERDs will accelerate the adoption of similar systems in other buildings, addressing the gap in conventional energy-efficiency approaches for industrial facilities. 

In June 2026, Bubbly Dynamics received a Designing a Better Chicago Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Built Environment Grant from the Design Museum of Chicago. The grant will fund Bubbly Dynamics’ portion of the scope for the first component of the effort, including visualization, graphics development, web interface, installation of digital display, and explanatory signage at The Plant. We will layer data sets into the digital model to illustrate the movement of heat through the building.

For a later phase of work, the data will be used to inform building system upgrades that will utilize a central condenser-water loop to strategically push or pull heat into individual processes throughout the building. This innovative system will move heat from areas of surplus to areas of deficit, while using the building’s mass of concrete as a battery for storing excess heat. While  the digital interface will initially display real-time conditions, it will illustrate and explain how the overall system works as the project advances.

The project’s benefits will extend well beyond our immediate community through the public display of the digital twin and through open-sourcing of our methods. These resources encourage engagement with the public, from engineering and design students to  professionals. We will develop an outreach initiative to technical high schools, city college programs, and universities, building off our existing connections with local high schools and university-level programs. Stay tuned as we go!