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Building on the 3-year End-Use Load Profiles project to calibrate and validate the U.S. Department of Energy’s ResStock™ and ComStock™ models, this work produces national datasets that enable cities, states, utilities, and other stakeholders to answer a broad range of questions regarding their commercial building stock.
This report describes the use of ComStock to model the implementation and impacts of upgrading the wall insulation, roof insulation, and windows in the U.S. commercial building stock to comply with the current state energy code in force.
The commercial building sector stock model, or ComStock, is a highly granular, bottom-up model that uses multiple data sources, statistical sampling methods, and advanced building energy simulations to estimate the annual subhourly energy consumption of the commercial building stock across the United States.
ComStock™ is an analytic methodology for modeling the energy usage of the commercial building stock within the United States of America. The commercial building stock is represented through a sampling of complex probabilistic distributions of various features of interest for modeling energy usage within commercial buildings. Each sample from these distributions is converted into a building energy model based on the features of that specific sample. Each building energy model can be simulated as is, but additional changes can be made to the model through addition of energy conservation measures, component faults, or other desired alterations. The results of the simulations are then processed to provide insights for various stakeholders, including but not limited to policy makers, engineers, and marketers.
This report provides documentation of a measure for the End Use Savings Shapes project, which consists of analysis of different energy efficiency and renewable energy measures on the commercial building stock, using NREL's ComStock tool. The measure consists of a reduction in thermostat setbacks for air-source heat pump RTUs.
This package replaces existing gas and electric resistance rooftop units (RTUs) with standard efficiency heat pump RTUs and improves roof insulation. The purpose is to couple heat pumps retrofits with an improved envelope to investigate the combined effect.
This report describes the implementation and impacts of a geothermal heat pump, envelope, and lighting upgrade package. This measure scenario involves replacing existing HVAC systems with geothermal heat pumps, upgrading wall insulation, roof insulation, and windows, and replacing lighting with LEDs.
This report describes the implementation and impacts of a condensing gas boiler upgrade, which involves replacing existing boiler systems with condensing gas boilers.
This report describes the implementation and impacts of a geothermal heat pump and envelope upgrade package, which involves replacing existing HVAC systems with geothermal heat pumps and upgrading wall insulation, roof insulation, and windows.
This report describes the implementation and impacts of an electric resistance boiler upgrade, which involves replacing existing boiler systems with electric resistance boilers.
This report describes the implementation and impacts of a heat pump and lighting upgrade package, which involves replacing boilers and RTUs with heat pumps and replacing existing interior lighting with LEDs.
This documentation focuses on a single end-use savings shape measure - heat pump rooftop units (HP-RTUs) with standard efficiencies that are prevalent in the current market. Today, these products are claimed as standard efficiency by the manufacturers and are most commonly installed. This document will primarily discuss the additional changes of performance and configuration of the standard efficiency HP-RTUs while a comprehensive overview of the fundamental modeling methodology and background of the HP-RTU measure, including applicability, sizing scheme, and other key assumptions can be found in the original documentation: Heat Pump RTU. The definition of "standard efficiency" can be a bit vague when considering detailed specifics other than efficiency metrics of a heat pump. Thus, we have focused on reflecting products where manufacturers claim as standard efficiency and products that are not top-of-the-line in their model lineup. Based on gathering information from eight products from four major manufacturers, there are some common (or relatively prevalent) characteristics and we have defined standard efficiency product as follows: direct drive outdoor unit fan, two stages of heat pump cooling, single stage heat pump heating (i.e., all compressors running at the same time), heat pump minimum lockout temperature of 0°F (-17.8°C), backup electric resistance heating, backup heating runs at the same time as heat pump heating , heat pump heating locking out below minimum operating temperature, IEER in between 11-13, and HSPF in between 8-8.9. There are cases where some of these products have other variations: a variable frequency drive fan, dual fuel (i.e., gas backup heating) option, three or more cooling stages, two stages of heat pump heating, no backup heating as default , etc. However, this work tried to reflect the most common and prevalent options for a standard efficiency product.
A set of TMY3 EPW weather files for each county of the U.S.
The author has identified the following significant results. LANDSAT images enhanced by the band-ratioing method can be used for reconnaissance alteration mapping in moderately heavily vegetated semiarid terrain as well as in sparsely vegetated to semiarid terrain where the technique was originally developed. Significant vegetation cover in a scene, however, requires the use of MSS ratios 4/5, 4/6, and 6/7 rather than 4/5, 5/6, and 6/7, and requires careful interpretation of the results. Supplemental information suitable to vegetation identification and cover estimates, such as standard LANDSAT false-color composites and low altitude aerial photographs of selected areas is desirable.
Thermal Infrared Multispectral Scanner (TIMS) data were acquired over the Virginia City area on September 12, 1984. The data were acquired at approximately 1130 hours local time (1723 IRIG). The TIMS data were analyzed using both photointerpretation and digital processing techniques. Karhuen-Loeve transformations were utilized to display variations in radiant spectral emittance. The TIMS image data were compared with color infrared metric camera photography, LANDSAT Thematic Mapper (TM) data, and key areas were photographed in the field.
Building on the successfully completed effort to calibrate and validate the U.S. Department of Energy's ResStock and ComStock models over the past 3 years, the objective of this work is to produce national data sets that empower analysts working for federal, state, utility, city, and manufacturer stakeholders to answer a broad range of analysis questions. The goal of this work is to develop energy efficiency, electrification, and demand flexibility end-use load shapes (electricity, gas, propane, or fuel oil) that cover a majority of the high-impact, market-ready (or nearly market-ready) upgrade measures, or upgrades. "Measures" refers to energy efficiency variables that can be applied to buildings during modeling. An end-use savings shape is the difference in energy consumption between a baseline building and a building with an energy efficiency, electrification, or demand flexibility upgrade applied. It results in a time-series profile that is broken down by end use and fuel (electricity or on-site gas, propane, or fuel oil use) at each time step. ComStock is a highly granular, bottom-up model that uses multiple data sources, statistical sampling methods, and advanced building energy simulations to estimate the annual subhourly energy consumption of the commercial building stock across the United States. The baseline model intends to represent the U.S. commercial building stock as it existed in 2018. The methodology and results of the baseline model are discussed in the final technical report of the End-Use Load Profiles project. This documentation focuses on an upgrade package of three end-use savings shapes upgrades - Window Replacement, Exterior Wall Insulation, and Roof Insulation, which we will refer to collectively as the "High Efficiency Envelope" package. More details on the individual upgrades can be found on the ComStock Measures Documentation page. An upgrade package applies two or more EUSS upgrades to a single building model simulation. Since ComStock is a bottom-up physics-based model, an upgrade package will go beyond aggregating or summing the individual upgrade results and produce novel results by simulating interactions between the upgrades. For example, pairing an envelope upgrade with an electrification upgrade would likely result in higher savings results than the sum of these upgrades individually, and the size of the heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) equipment may be reduced if the envelope upgrade reduces the loads significantly.
Building on the successfully completed effort to calibrate and validate the U.S. Department of Energy's ResStock and ComStock models over the past 3 years, the objective of this work is to produce national data sets that empower analysts working for federal, state, utility, city, and manufacturer stakeholders to answer a broad range of analysis questions. The goal of this work is to develop energy efficiency, electrification, and demand flexibility end-use load shapes (electricity, gas, propane, or fuel oil) that cover a majority of the high-impact, market-ready (or nearly market-ready) upgrade measures, or upgrades. "Measures" refers to energy efficiency variables that can be applied to buildings during modeling. An end-use savings shape is the difference in energy consumption between a baseline building and a building with an energy efficiency, electrification, or demand flexibility upgrade applied. It results in a time-series profile that is broken down by end use and fuel (electricity or on-site gas, propane, or fuel oil use) at each time step. ComStock is a highly granular, bottom-up model that uses multiple data sources, statistical sampling methods, and advanced building energy simulations to estimate the annual subhourly energy consumption of the commercial building stock across the United States. The baseline model intends to represent the U.S. commercial building stock as it existed in 2018. The methodology and results of the baseline model are discussed in the final technical report of the End-Use Load Profiles project. This documentation focuses on an upgrade package of three end-use savings shapes upgrades - Light Emitting Diode (LED) Lighting, Heat Pump Rooftop Unit (RTU) (HP-RTU), and Air-Source Heat Pump (ASHP) Boiler, which we will refer to collectively as the "Interior Lighting and Heat Pump" package. More details on the individual upgrades can be found on the ComStock Measures Documentation page. An upgrade package applies two or more EUSS upgrades to a single building model simulation. Since ComStock is a bottom-up physics-based model, an upgrade package will go beyond aggregating or summing the individual upgrade results and produce novel results by simulating interactions between the upgrades. For example, pairing an envelope upgrade with an electrification upgrade would likely result in higher savings results than the sum of these upgrades individually, and the size of the heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) equipment may be reduced if the envelope upgrade reduces the loads significantly.
Commercial buildings account for 18% of U.S. energy consumption, with 44% used for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC). American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) 90.1 requires HVAC systems to shutdown fans and outdoor air ventilation during unoccupied times, only allowing fans to cycle on, without outdoor air, to maintain thermostat setpoints. However, it is minimally understood how often existing building operations align with energy code requirements and the energy implications of not doing so. This study used building automation system data from 843 buildings containing 5706 air handling units (AHUs) to determine three unoccupied AHU shutdown control schemes ranging in efficiency and then estimated their prevalence in the U.S. commercial building stock, segmented by building type. ComStock was then used to analyze the energy savings potential of implementing the most energy efficient unoccupied shutdown control scheme in non-participating buildings across the U.S commercial building stock. Results show that only 23% of AHUs align completely with the ASHRAE 90.1 requirement. ComStock modeling results show 4% annual stock energy savings by switching all non-participating buildings to the most efficient scheme, with 19% annual energy savings demonstrated for the median building switching from the least efficient scheme to the most efficient. Findings also show 114.5 TBtu electricity and 75.8 TBtu natural gas fuel savings when converting to the most efficient scheme. Furthermore, these findings help stakeholders understand the high prevalence of buildings not aligning with the ASHRAE-90.1 requirements for unoccupied AHU shutdowns and the energy savings potential of utilizing the most efficient unoccupied AHU shutdown scheme.