Get new editions in your inbox

Subscribe for occasional updates on Czero projects, events, and engineering insights.

Occasional updates from Czero. Unsubscribe at any time.

Client Story: Tempo & UC San Diego

Thermochemical energy storage is a compelling technology — high energy density, long-duration discharge, waste heat recovery built in. But combining a novel storage technology with turbogenerator, power conversion, and heat recovery subsystems into a single working system is a different engineering challenge than building any one of those components.

Czero is serving as the system integrator on Tempo's first-of-its-kind TCES deployment at the UC San Diego medical campus, funded by an $8.9M grant from the California Energy Commission. The system delivers 100 kW of emergency power for up to 24 hours and captures waste heat to augment campus cooling — a genuinely efficient energy recovery architecture.

Our role is exactly what system integrator implies: we combine Tempo's TCES modules with the turbogenerator, power conversion, and waste heat recovery subsystems into one seamless system, managing interfaces, boundary conditions, and controls architecture across every subsystem boundary. That's the multidisciplinary integration work we do every week — just on a first-of-its-kind platform.

Czero and Bosch Rexroth Collaborate on Challenging Electrification Projects

The transition to electrification for industrial and off-highway applications presents significant integration challenges. To address them, industry leaders in industrial motion, electrification, and automation technology, Bosch Rexroth, and analysis-led engineering and system integration specialists, Czero, are collaborating to offer customers access to full-spectrum electrification and hydraulic solutions — from component selection and software to application-specific design, build, and commissioning.

Bosch Rexroth's product portfolio covers the full hardware stack for industrial and off-highway power and motion applications — variable hydraulics, servo drives, high-voltage inverters, electric motor-generators, and application-specific software modules, deployed across mobile equipment, industrial automation, and electrified drivetrain architectures globally.

Czero's engineering capabilities provide the integration layer: physics-based dynamic modeling in MATLAB/Simulink and more, embedded controls development, nonlinear and adaptive control algorithm implementation, and full MIL/HIL validation infrastructure. Analysis, controls, mechanical design, fabrication, and system commissioning are executed in-house at Czero's facility.

With 30+ years of controls delivery and over 450 completed projects across energy, defense, and transportation sectors, Czero operates at the intersection of dynamic modeling, embedded controls, and prototype build and test.

"By leveraging Bosch Rexroth's complete portfolio of electric and hydraulic systems with Czero's specialized system integration expertise, we give customers a direct path from first concept to validated, commissioned system that is optimized to provide top performance."

— Guy Babbitt, CEO, Czero

Czero Selected as Voucher Provider for EnergyWerx

Czero is proud to announce that we have been selected as a voucher provider for the Department of Energy's EnergyWerx program.

EnergyWerx is DOE's platform for connecting early-stage technology developers to federal resources and engineering expertise at no cost — purpose-built to move energy innovations from early-stage development into the market faster. The Hydropower Testing Network (HyTN) is one of the programs they run, giving hydropower developers structured access to testing and analysis expertise that might otherwise be out of reach — Round 2 Recipient applications are now open.

The mechanics are straightforward: DOE selects Voucher Providers (Czero), then opens applications for technology developers (Voucher Recipients) to request access. DOE pays the Voucher Provider directly — $50K–$250K per project, up to one year, with no cost-share or equity required from the Voucher Recipient.

What Czero Brings

Our 16,000 ft² facility has the physical infrastructure — high-power hydraulics, dynamometers, thermal chambers, HIL test rigs. But hardware access is the floor, not the ceiling. The real value is analysis depth: 30+ years of CFD (turbines, pumps, valves, systems, cavitation, two-phase flow, and more), 20+ years of FEA (structural dynamics, non-linear, fatigue), and 30+ years of physics-based dynamic modeling and controls of hydraulic systems including HIL/MIL/SIL. We've done this in hydropower before: tidal energy harvesting, wave energy systems, open channel harvesters, and tow tank programs.

Who Should Apply

U.S.-based for-profits, nonprofits, or academic institutions at low-to-mid TRL working on hydropower powertrain, hydraulic, structural, electrical, or mechanical technologies. Applicants are encouraged to contact prospective Voucher Providers before applying to discuss their project and confirm capability alignment.

Key Dates

• Webinar: June 25, 2026 at 3:00 PM ET
• Applications due: July 23, 2026 at 3:00 PM ET (eligibility form required first)

If your technology could benefit from Czero's capabilities, we want to hear from you — understanding the fit early can make for a stronger application and a better matched project. Applications are submitted through EnergyWerx.

Czero at Scale: GDLS & ACT Expo

Guy was just at ACT Expo in Las Vegas — the industry's flagship event for advanced commercial vehicle and powertrain technology. The conversations there, across electrification, hybrid architectures, and alternative fuels, reflect exactly the kind of engineering complexity Czero has been working in for years. Which brings us to a proof point worth sharing.

In 2019, Czero built a powertrain architecture trade tool for General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS) to evaluate next-generation hybrid powertrains for heavy tracked vehicles — presented at SAE WCX 2019. The tool evaluated 10+ powertrain topologies, ran 50+ dynamic evaluations with 100+ weighted outputs, and used instantaneous optimization algorithms to control plant models developed in MATLAB/Simulink. The modular architecture allowed rapid topology swaps without rebuilding the model from scratch. It's the kind of work that requires both deep modeling capability and an understanding of what a defense prime actually needs to make a decision.

That project is a direct line to the work we do today. Czero operates at every scale — from early-stage startups to Tier 1 suppliers to defense system integrators. Combined with our Bosch Rexroth partnership, it reflects a consistent pattern: serious engineering problems find their way to Czero regardless of the organization behind them.

Technical White Papers Now Published

Czero's technical white papers are now live on our website. These aren't marketing documents — they're the documented record of what it actually takes to design, integrate, and test complex energy and powertrain systems at prototype and demo scale. Years of hard problems, real builds, and lessons learned, written up for the engineers and program managers who want to see the work.

If you're evaluating a partner for a technically demanding program, start here.

Our team is growing! If you thrive on clarity, ownership, and seeing complex systems work — not just in slides, but in hardware — we should talk.

If any of this connects to something you're building

We'd love to hear from you.