The Urban Utility Center (UUC) was established in 1997 by the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, the SAGEP, Paris, Consolidated Edison, Gas de France, and Keyspan Energy, under the auspices of Polytechnic University in New York in order to promote public-private partnerships for accelerating the assessment, demonstration and deployment of innovative infrastructure technologies. UUC is a non-profit corporation, established by its founding members, consisting of leading infrastructure operating agencies, to provide the necessary multi-lateral institutional framework for leveraging expertise and resources of the public and the private sectors of the infrastructure industry at the federal, state, and local levels in the United States and in the European Community in order to identify, develop, assess, and thereby catalyze the commercialization and large scale deployment of state-of-the-art infrastructure technologies.

UUC's prime goal is to promote reliable and cost-effective use of such technologies in order to address fast growing societal needs for accelerating the rehabilitation of aging infrastructures, improving their performance, and upgrading the quality and safety of the vital public services that they support. In the aftermath of 9/11 its core mission was expanded to leveraging expertise and resources of its European, North American and Israeli partners and reinforcing the capabilities of public agencies and private sector infrastructure system operators for safeguarding civilian infrastructures from terrorist attack and mitigating disaster impacts of manmade and natural catastrophes.

To effectively accomplish this goal UUC programs address: 1) Infrastructure Needs Assessment; 2) Technology Solutions Assessment, Demonstration and Deployment; 3) Applied Research and Development; 4) Professional Training, and 5) early deployment support and monitoring for innovative technologies responding to industry needs. Under the leadership of the U.S. and European agencies involved, the overriding objective is the development and actual deployment of best practice technologies and expertise to effectively address emerging infrastructure needs of the energy, electrical power, gas, water, cyber, and transportation industries.

Working with the dedicated R&D laboratories, industry, and the public and private infrastructure operating agencies, UUC goal is to leverage the necessary expertise and support assessment and demonstration for deployment of emerging technology solutions. For this purpose, UUC, through its Center in New York and its affiliated European Community Center in Paris, capitalizes on the expertise of its members, leveraging a unique network of public and private US and European resources in order to provide the necessary forum for establishing public-private partnerships for demonstration and early deployment performance monitoring of selected technologies responding to the needs identified by the utilities and the operating agencies.

UUC has access to a unique network of public and private strategic partners and expert resources in the US and Europe which has the capacity to 1) coordinate, prioritize and direct R&D efforts across a broad array of interdependent infrastructure industries; 2) identify and evaluate early stage technologies; 3) integrate potential end-users into the development process, including utilities and municipalities; and 4) conduct on site demonstrations in selected sites of the member utilities.

Under the leadership of its Board of Directors, representing the founding member agencies, UUC has access to the capabilities of its founding members and their networks of local governments, infrastructure agencies and utilities in the US and Europe. Working with EPRI, representing the electrical power utilities, AMWA representing the municipal water industry, GTI, representing the gas industry, the New York University Rudin Center, representing the National Association of Cities' Transportation Officials (NACTO), and US Universities, UUC will provide a unique vehicle for accelerating the deployment of selected technologies identified by its Board of Infrastructure Experts.