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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Review of the U.S. Policies, Codes, and Standards of Zero-Carbon Buildings

The global issue of climate change has accelerated the international commitment to net-zero carbon emission development. Decarbonizing the building sector has been put on several governments’ sustainable development agendas. To provide a reference for decarbonizing the building sector, this paper summarizes the U.S. experience in zero-carbon buildings (ZCBs) from the aspects of policies, codes, and standards at the federal and local levels and those of professional societies. Based on the definition and boundaries of ZCBs, this paper introduces policies on building energy efficiency, electrification, on-site renewable energy deployment, and “buy clean”, illustrating highlights in building phases, energy systems, materials production, and fiscal incentives. The synergic efforts and coordination between federal and local levels and with professional societies are also introduced. Successful experiences in policy and standard implementation are summarized, including the systemic work of multilevel governance, clearly defined goals and stringent policies, constant upgrades of codes and standards, transparency in reporting and information sharing, and increased financial and investment opportunities. This paper provides concrete recommendations for developing zero-carbon building policies.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2022

Beyond Energy Efficiency: A clustering approach to embed demand flexibility into building energy benchmarking

The intermittency of carbon-free renewables and the demand changes associated with the widespread push for electrifying the transportation and building sectors provides an opportunity for buildings to go beyond energy efficiency and push towards providing demand flexibility to the electricity grid. The duality of energy efficiency and demand flexibility is necessary for success in a sustainable and reliable energy transition. Current building energy benchmarking models are limited in their ability to integrate concepts of demand flexibility and/or utilize granular smart meter data. Thus, current benchmarking methods are focused annual energy usage and fail to incorporate how the time of use of energy consumption impacts emissions in a quickly changing energy grid. Without a more comprehensive view of energy usage and associated real-time emissions, current benchmarking methods are unlikely to realize the full decarbonization potential of buildings. New emerging data streams provide an opportunity to develop a new generation of benchmarking energy models that embed dimensions of energy efficiency, grid interactivity, and demand flexibility into their analysis. In this paper, we propose a four-step method for embedding grid interactivity and demand flexibility into building benchmarking models that utilizes emerging building and time-series electricity data streams. We first engineer features to produce a mix-type dataset that encompasses many attributes of grid-interactive and efficient buildings, and then we apply K-medoids using Gower's Distance to produce peer-group clusters. We apply the method to a case study of 306 primary and secondary schools in southern California, USA. The results show that the method effectively clusters buildings by attributes of demand flexibility and energy efficiency. The clustering results reveal patterns in inefficient building operations and demand inflexibility at the building peer group level. In conclusion, the interpretation of clusters can serve as an integrated energy efficiency and demand flexibility benchmarking model and inform performance-specific policy targeting for buildings that go beyond traditional efficiency measures.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2013

Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of the 2009 and 2012 IECC Residential Provisions – Technical Support Document

This analysis was conducted by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in support of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Building Energy Codes Program (BECP). DOE supports the development and adoption of efficient residential and commercial building energy codes. These codes set the minimum requirements for energy efficient building design and construction and ensure energy savings on a national level. This analysis focuses on one and two family dwellings, townhomes, and low-rise multifamily residential buildings. For these buildings, the basis of the energy codes is the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC). This report does not address commercial and high-rise residential buildings, which reference ANSI/ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.1.

Mendon, Vrushali V.↗
DOE OSTI2010

Energy Efficiency Trends in Residential and Commercial Buildings - August 2010

This report overviews trends in the construction industry, including profiles of buildings and the resulting impacts on energy consumption. It begins with an executive summary of the key findings found in the body of the report, so some of the data and charts are replicated in this section. Its intent is to provide in a concise place key data points and conclusions. The remainder of the report provides a specific profile of the construction industry and patterns of energy use followed by sections providing product and market insights and information on policy efforts, such as taxes and regulations, which are intended to influence building energy use. Information on voluntary programs is also offered.

commercial buildings↗
DOE OSTI2015

Energy and Energy Cost Savings Analysis of the 2015 IECC for Commercial Buildings (Rev.1)

As required by statute (42 USC 6833), DOE recently issued a determination that ANSI/ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.1-2013 would achieve greater energy efficiency in buildings subject to the code compared to the 2010 edition of the standard. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) conducted an energy savings analysis for Standard 90.1-2013 in support of its determination. While Standard 90.1 is the model energy standard for commercial and multi-family residential buildings over three floors (42 USC 6833), many states have historically adopted the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) for both residential and commercial buildings. This report provides an assessment as to whether buildings constructed to the commercial energy efficiency provisions of the 2015 IECC would save energy and energy costs as compared to the 2012 IECC. PNNL also compared the energy performance of the 2015 IECC with the corresponding Standard 90.1-2013. The goal of this analysis is to help states and local jurisdictions make informed decisions regarding model code adoption.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
NASA NTRS2015

An Assessment of Actual and Potential Building Climate Zone Change and Variability From the Last 30 Years Through 2100 Using NASA's MERRA and CMIP5 Simulations

Background: In the US, residential and commercial building infrastructure combined consumes about 40% of total energy usage and emits about 39% of total CO2 emission (DOE/EIA "Annual Energy Outlook 2013"). Building codes, as used by local and state enforcement entities are typically tied to the dominant climate within an enforcement jurisdiction classified according to various climate zones. These climate zones are based upon a 30-year average of local surface observations and are developed by DOE and ASHRAE. Establishing the current variability and potential changes to future building climate zones is very important for increasing the energy efficiency of buildings and reducing energy costs and emissions in the future. Objectives: This paper demonstrates the usefulness of using NASA's Modern Era Retrospective-analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) atmospheric data assimilation to derive the DOE/ASHRAE building climate zone maps and then using MERRA to define the last 30 years of variability in climate zones for the Continental US. An atmospheric assimilation is a global atmospheric model optimized to satellite, atmospheric and surface in situ measurements. Using MERRA as a baseline, we then evaluate the latest Climate Model Inter-comparison Project (CMIP) climate model Version 5 runs to assess potential variability in future climate zones under various assumptions. Methods: We derive DOE/ASHRAE building climate zones using surface and temperature data products from MERRA. We assess these zones using the uncertainties derived by comparison to surface measurements. Using statistical tests, we evaluate variability of the climate zones in time and assess areas in the continental US for statistically significant trends by region. CMIP 5 produced a data base of over two dozen detailed climate model runs under various greenhouse gas forcing assumptions. We evaluate the variation in building climate zones for 3 different decades using an ensemble and quartile statistics to provide an assessment of potential building climate zone changes relative to the uncertainties demonstrated using MERRA. Findings and Conclusions: These results show that there is a statistically significant increase in the area covered by warmer climate zones and a tendency for a reduction of area in colder climate zones in some limited regions. The CMIP analysis shows that models vary from relatively little building climate zone change for the least sensitive and conservation assumptions to a warming of at most 3 zones for certain areas, particularly the north central US by the end of the 21st century.

Stackhouse, Paul W., Jr.↗
DOE OSTI2013

Comparison of building energy use data between the United States and China

Buildings in the United States and China consumed 41percent and 28percent of the total primary energy in 2011, respectively. Good energy data are the cornerstone to understanding building energy performance and supporting research, design, operation, and policy making for low energy buildings. This paper presents initial outcomes from a joint research project under the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center for Building Energy Efficiency. The goal is to decode the driving forces behind the discrepancy of building energy use between the two countries; identify gaps and deficiencies of current building energy monitoring, data collection, and analysis; and create knowledge and tools to collect and analyze good building energy data to provide valuable and actionable information for key stakeholders. This paper first reviews and compares several popular existing building energy monitoring systems in both countries. Next a standard energy data model is presented. A detailed, measured building energy data comparison was conducted for a few office buildings in both countries. Finally issues of data collection, quality, sharing, and analysis methods are discussed. It was found that buildings in both countries performed very differently, had potential for deep energy retrofit, but that different efficiency measures should apply.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2015

Energy savings and cost-benefit analysis of the new commercial building standard in China

In this study, a comprehensive comparison of the commercial building energy efficiency standard between the previous 2005 version and the new proposed version is conducted, including the energy efficiency analysis and cost-benefit analysis. To better understand the tech-economic performance of the new Chinese standard, energy models were set up based on a typical commercial office building in Chinese climate zones. The building energy standard in 2005 is used as the baseline for this analysis. Key building technologies measures are analyzed individually, including roof, wall, window, lighting and chiller and so on and finally whole building cost-benefit analysis was conducted. Results show that the new commercial building energy standard demonstrates good cost-effective performance, with whole building payback period around 4 years.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2022

CityBES v2021

City Buildings, Energy, and Sustainability (CityBES) is a web-based data and computing platform, focusing on energy modeling and analysis of a city's building stock to support district or city-scale building energy efficiency programs. CityBES uses an international open data standard, CityGML, to represent and exchange 3D city models. CityBES employs EnergyPlus to simulate building energy use and savings from energy efficient retrofits. Other CityBES features include energy benchmarking, district heating and cooling system modeling, rooftop PV analysis, building performance visualization, heat resilience modeling, as well as urban scale mapping of microclimate and heat vulnerability at census tract level. Different from other tools, CityBES uses integrated open and standard 3D city building data and models each individual building using EnergyPlus. CityBES can be used by urban planners, city energy managers, building owners, utilities, energy consultants and researchers.

Hong, Tianzhen↗
DOE OSTI2022

Systems and methods for data analytics for virtual energy audits and value capture assessment of buildings

A system may provide virtual energy audits of one or more target buildings. The system may retrieve weather data and energy usage data specific to a given target building from a weather server and a utility server, respectively. The system may store predefined building characteristics corresponding to the given target building in local memory. Based on the weather data, energy usage data, and/or predefined building characteristics, the system may generate one or more building markers that characterize the energy usage and efficiency of the given target building. Building efficiency diagnostics and energy conservation prognostics may be generated based on the building markers and may be sent by the system to be displayed via a user interface of a client device. The energy conservation prognostics may include one or more energy conservation measure recommendations and corresponding predicted cost/energy savings.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2013

A technical framework to describe occupant behavior for building energy simulations

Green buildings that fail to meet expected design performance criteria indicate that technology alone does not guarantee high performance. Human influences are quite often simplified and ignored in the design, construction, and operation of buildings. Energy-conscious human behavior has been demonstrated to be a significant positive factor for improving the indoor environment while reducing the energy use of buildings. In our study we developed a new technical framework to describe energy-related human behavior in buildings. The energy-related behavior includes accounting for individuals and groups of occupants and their interactions with building energy services systems, appliances and facilities. The technical framework consists of four key components: i. the drivers behind energy-related occupant behavior, which are biological, societal, environmental, physical, and economical in nature ii. the needs of the occupants are based on satisfying criteria that are either physical (e.g. thermal, visual and acoustic comfort) or non-physical (e.g. entertainment, privacy, and social reward) iii. the actions that building occupants perform when their needs are not fulfilled iv. the systems with which an occupant can interact to satisfy their needs The technical framework aims to provide a standardized description of a complete set of human energy-related behaviors in the form of an XML schema. For each type of behavior (e.g., occupants opening/closing windows, switching on/off lights etc.) we identify a set of common behaviors based on a literature review, survey data, and our own field study and analysis. Stochastic models are adopted or developed for each type of behavior to enable the evaluation of the impact of human behavior on energy use in buildings, during either the design or operation phase. We will also demonstrate the use of the technical framework in assessing the impact of occupancy behavior on energy saving technologies. The technical framework presented is part of our human behavior research, a 5-year program under the U.S. - China Clean Energy Research Center for Building Energy Efficiency.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2014

Low-Flow Liquid Desiccant Air-Conditioning: Demonstrated Performance and Cost Implications

Cooling loads must be dramatically reduced when designing net-zero energy buildings or other highly efficient facilities. Advances in this area have focused primarily on reducing a building's sensible cooling loads by improving the envelope, integrating properly sized daylighting systems, adding exterior solar shading devices, and reducing internal heat gains. As sensible loads decrease, however, latent loads remain relatively constant, and thus become a greater fraction of the overall cooling requirement in highly efficient building designs, particularly in humid climates. This shift toward latent cooling is a challenge for heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems. Traditional systems typically dehumidify by first overcooling air below the dew-point temperature and then reheating it to an appropriate supply temperature, which requires an excessive amount of energy. Another dehumidification strategy incorporates solid desiccant rotors that remove water from air more efficiently; however, these systems are large and increase fan energy consumption due to the increased airside pressure drop of solid desiccant rotors. A third dehumidification strategy involves high flow liquid desiccant systems. These systems require a high maintenance separator to protect the air distribution system from corrosive desiccant droplet carryover and so are more commonly used in industrial applications and rarely in commercial buildings. Both solid desiccant systems and most high-flow liquid desiccant systems (if not internally cooled) add sensible energy which must later be removed to the air stream during dehumidification, through the release of sensible heat during the sorption process.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2013

Thermal Performance Evaluation of Attic Radiant Barrier Systems Using the Large Scale Climate Simulator (LSCS)

Application of radiant barriers and low-emittance surface coatings in residential building attics can significantly reduce conditioning loads from heat flow through attic floors. The roofing industry has been developing and using various radiant barrier systems and low-emittance surface coatings to increase energy efficiency in buildings; however, minimal data are available that quantifies the effectiveness of these technologies. This study evaluates performance of various attic radiant barrier systems under simulated summer daytime conditions and nighttime or low solar gain daytime winter conditions using the large scale climate simulator (LSCS). The four attic configurations that were evaluated are 1) no radiant barrier (control), 2) perforated low-e foil laminated oriented strand board (OSB) deck, 3) low-e foil stapled on rafters, and 4) liquid applied low-emittance coating on roof deck and rafters. All test attics used nominal RUS 13 h-ft2- F/Btu (RSI 2.29 m2-K/W) fiberglass batt insulation on attic floor. Results indicate that the three systems with radiant barriers had heat flows through the attic floor during summer daytime condition that were 33%, 50%, and 19% lower than the control, respectively.

building energy efficiency↗
DOE OSTI2021

Community-scale interaction of energy efficiency and demand flexibility in residential buildings

Demand-side management (DSM) strategies, including energy efficiency (EE) and demand flexibility (DF), contribute to cost-effective operation of the electricity grid. From a system-level perspective, such programs reduce costs, enhance reliability, and reduce network issues. Similarly, DSM programs help participating customers reduce utility bills while maintaining occupant comfort. Understanding the relationship between EE and DF is key to realizing the full potential of DSM programs. In this study, we modeled an all-electric residential community based on a 498-home community that is planned for construction in Fort Collins, Colorado in the United States. We used this community model to study the relationship between different EE measures, including building envelope upgrades and smart appliances, and DF enabled by a home energy management system (HEMS) responding to a time-varying tariff. Various EE levels in the homes – code-minimum, zero energy ready, and even higher levels of envelope efficiency – were simulated. DF is enabled by the HEMS, which coordinates behind-the-meter resources, including flexible building loads, PV, and home battery systems, to minimize utility bills while maintaining occupant comfort. When comparing to the code-minimum homes, EE upgrades alone reduce HVAC energy use during peak hours by up to 50% and the HVAC utility bill by up to $312/year. With the addition of HEMS, the average daily peak demand can be reduced by up to 0.58 MW or 1.2 kW/home in the higher envelope efficiency homes. The combination of EE upgrades, HEMS, and home battery systems is expected to save homeowners up to $590/year while increasing community load flexibility. However, HEMS and home battery systems are less effective in increasing the DF in the more efficient homes due to the lower load.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2022

A review of preserving privacy in data collected from buildings with differential privacy

Significant amounts of data are collected in buildings. While these data have great potential for maximizing the energy efficiency of buildings in general, only a small portion of the data are accessible to researchers, government, and industry for analyses. Concerns about privacy are one of the major barriers prohibiting access to these data. Privacy preservation techniques are generally applied to this problem not only to preserve underlying privacy but also to improve the usefulness of data. Among various privacy preserving techniques, differential privacy has become one of the more popular solutions since its introduction in 2006. Differential privacy is a mathematical measure for protecting privacy so that one's privacy cannot be incurred by participating in a database. Additionally, although significant research improvements have been made for more than a decade, applying differential privacy to data collected in buildings is still an immature field of study. Because implementing differential privacy on a certain use case is not straightforward and can be achieved with various configurations, it is important to understand variation of configurations with different use cases around data collected from buildings. This literature review aims to introduce what has been done to implement differential privacy in data collected in buildings, and to discuss associated challenges and potential future research opportunities.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2015

Ideas that Work!. Retuning the Building Automation System

A building automation system (BAS) can save considerable energy by effectively and efficiently operating building energy systems (fans, pumps, chillers boilers, etc.), but only when the BAS is properly set up and operated. Tuning, or retuning, the BAS is a cost effective process worthy of your time and attention.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
NASA NTRS1986

Space bio-technology in housing

Gas chromatography and mass spectrometry data obtained from monitoring atmospheric pollutants in Skylab spurred studies of indoor pollutants in terrestrial buildings. Subsequent studies of techniques for removing the pollutants from space habitats have led to building concepts which achieve the same purpose on earth. The Skylab data indicated that the synthesized organic materials used in many modern buildings, furnishings, personal clothing and aerosols add significant amounts of chemicals to the indoor atmosphere. Lowered circulation and ventilation rates to conserve energy have caused trapping of these substances in buildings. Studies of methods for space modules which will use plants and microbes to absorb airborne and wastewater pollutants have defined biotechnology designs which can be applied to remove pollutants from air and wastewater organically. Plant roots trap pollutants from wastewater and leaves readily absorb air pollutants, as well as improve the overall energy efficiency of buildings. Several designs which incorporate biotechnology to enhance both the aesthetics and efficiency of homes and office buildings are illustrated.

Wolverton, B. C.↗
DOE OSTI2019

Building Benchmark Data Platform

This project is a three-year, four-laboratory collaboration to collect and curate a handful of high-resolution building systems datasets that have broad applicability to address highest-impact use cases. We will collect and curate high-resolution, well-calibrated time series of building operational and indoor/outdoor environmental data, which are crucial to understanding and optimizing building energy efficiency performance and demand flexibility capabilities as well as benchmarking energy algorithms.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗