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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 973 records · Page 54
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2021

Puerto Rico Energy Efficiency Scenario Analysis Tool (PREESAT)

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) developed the Puerto Rico Energy Efficiency Scenario Analysis Tool (PREESAT) to allow stakeholders to estimate the long-term aggregate electricity consumption impacts of various energy efficiency measures in Puerto Rico’s residential, commercial, and industrial sectors. PREESAT is an energy accounting framework that addresses electricity use. These presentation slides provide a summary of the electrical sector in Puerto Rico and an overview of how the PREESAT tool can be used to project energy savings from various energy efficiency measures in the residential, commercial, and industrial sectors.

commercial↗
DOE OSTI2021

Advancing Construction through the Buildings Workforce: Preprint

Buildings are America's energy hogs, consuming over 70 percent of all electricity and over 50 percent of all natural gas produced across the country. Achieving a clean energy future requires us to reinvent how buildings manage energy resources and how consumers demand it. The U.S. Department of Energy is investing in a range of technological advancements that are paving the way to a future where buildings are no longer simply energy consumers, but rather are part of an integrated system that help manage energy resources in a way that supports the electricity grid. This paradigm shift presents an opportunity to increase the efficiency of the built environment, but will only be realized if we build a knowledgeable workforce to design, construct, and operate these high-performance buildings in step with the rate of technological advancement.

ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION↗
DOE OSTI2022

Novel Manufacturing Method Could Reduce Costs, Time, and Energy Needed to Make High-Quality Metals

Industry is responsible for about 30% of U.S. carbon emissions and consumes about a third of the country's energy. Much of that energy is used to make essential materials for transportation, defense, and marine applications, like cars, airplanes, space shuttles, and ships. Now, with a novel manufacturing method called Shear Assisted Processing and Extrusion (ShAPE), manufacturers could make higher quality materials while significantly reducing their energy consumption, carbon emissions, and costs.

aluminum extrusion↗
DOE OSTI2022

A High-Granularity Approach to Modeling Energy Consumption and Savings Potential in the U.S. Residential Building Stock: Preprint

Building simulations are increasingly used in various applications related to energy efficient buildings. For individual buildings, applications include: design of new buildings, prediction of retrofit savings, ratings, performance path code compliance and qualification for incentives. Beyond individual building applications, larger scale applications (across the stock of buildings at various scales: national, regional and state) include: codes and standards development, utility program design, regional/state planning, and technology assessments. For these sorts of applications, a set of representative buildings are typically simulated to predict performance of the entire population of buildings. Focusing on the U.S. single-family residential building stock, this paper will describe how multiple data sources for building characteristics are combined into a highly-granular database that preserves the important interdependencies of the characteristics. We will present the sampling technique used to generate a representative set of thousands (up to hundreds of thousands) of building models. We will also present results of detailed calibrations against building stock consumption data.

building stock↗
DOE OSTI2022

NCSU Industrial Assessment Center

Renewable energy technologies are becoming more attractive and gaining more attention as the world becomes increasingly aware of the negative impacts of global warming and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Two such emerging technologies are geothermal heat pumps (GHP) and solar thermal heating which can be used for heating and cooling of buildings. GHP systems are a well-studied technology that have been proven to be more efficient than traditional air-source heat pumps for space conditioning of buildings. Solar thermal heating has become more common as a way to heat domestic hot water (DHW) in homes, but the two technologies are not often combined. This study presents the findings of combining an open-loop GHP with 100 ft2 of flat plate solar thermal panels and a 5,655-gallon sensible water storage tank for space heating and DHW heating needs of a residential home in Bozeman, MT, USA. The goal of this system was to use energy from the solar panels and storage tank first to decrease pumping energy from the GHP well. The open loop system was designed to be a backup system to the solar thermal panels and sensible storage tank. An actual home was modeled to determine potential energy and cost savings of such a system compared to a traditional propane boiler. Then, a case study was performed on the installed system from January to June 2021. Results obtained from April 2nd to June 5th, 2021 indicated that the combination system supplied all necessary heat, and that heat was supplied from the thermal storage tank 55% of the time. This represents a savings of 330 kWh of energy and $36 compared to operating just the open loop geothermal system. From April 2nd to June 5th the combination system consumed a total of 2,510 kWh of energy and cost $274 to operate. Based on data obtained, there is significant potential for energy savings compared to a propane boiler, however only small potential for cost savings.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2022

REopt for Resilient Buildings: Leveraging Energy Efficiency and Distributed Energy Resources for Resilience Solutions

Community resilience hubs are locally identified and community-serving facilities that provide residents year-round access to support resources. During extreme weather, they can reduce the burden on emergency response teams by supplying power before, during, and after grid outages through onsite energy systems. This presentation analyzes how NREL's REopt tool can leverage energy efficiency, distributed generation, and storage resources to ensure critical community facilities are online when they are needed most. We showcase the tool's capabilities and application through a case study that focuses on achieving resilience for critical facilities in Manatee County.

better buildings↗
DOE OSTI2022

Standard Work Specifications (SWS)

The SWS are a free online tool and industry guide that defines the minimum acceptable outcomes for home energy upgrades installed on single-family, multifamily, and manufactured housing.

ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION↗
DOE OSTI2022

Occupancy-Based Controls for an All-Electric Residential Community in a Cold Climate: Preprint

In residential buildings, rapid improvements in sensors, communication, and information technology have enabled occupancy-based building controls. These controls utilize occupancy information and modify the operation of the heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) system to minimize excess HVAC energy use, especially when the building is unoccupied. This reduces the total building energy consumption and utility bills while maintaining thermal comfort. In this paper, we present two novel occupancy-driven controls - reactive control and predictive control - and compare their performance. We model an all-electric residential community based on a 27- home community in Basalt, Colorado, in the United States. We simulated various scenarios, considering different temperature setback and control algorithms, to analyze the community-scale impact of these occupancy-based controls. The results show that total HVAC energy savings in a building ranges from 1%- 20% compared to the baseline scenario without occupancy-based controls. The energy-saving potential is highly correlated with the occupancy pattern and temperature setback in the building.

ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION↗
DOE OSTI2022

End-Use Load Profiles for the U.S. Building Stock: Technical Advisory Group Meeting #11

A technical advisory group guided the End-Use Load Profiles dataset development to ensure that the direction and outcomes of the work were aligned with market needs. The technical advisory group included roughly 100 representatives from organizations that were likely to use the resulting load profiles in their work, including utility companies, utility program implementers, grid operators, consultancies, research centers, state regulatory agencies, and regional energy efficiency organizations. This is the presentation from TAG Meeting #11.

buildings↗
DOE OSTI2022

Ushering in the New Age of Laboratories: Smart Labs in Practice; Preprint

Ventilation is the first line of defense against airborne hazards produced during research activities in laboratories. A vital component to maintaining healthy, safe, indoor air quality, laboratory ventilation systems are often victim to ineffective operation, posing a risk to an organization's most important asset - the researchers. Furthermore, system inefficiencies can lead to up to 50% wasted energy. By providing a framework to improve the safety and energy efficiency through optimized ventilation and operations, the Smart Labs Toolkit guides laboratory stakeholders through a straight-forward, holistic approach to achieving a dynamic Smart Labs program. A Smart Labs program employs a combination of physical, administrative, and management techniques to plan, assess, optimize, and manage high-performance laboratories. Grounded in the Smart Labs methodology, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) implemented a successful Smart Labs program to oversee the design, construction, maintenance, and operations of its laboratories. To accomplish this effort, NREL's key stakeholders created an internal partnership to align NREL's existing laboratories with Smart Labs principles and solidify organizational roles for the safe and efficient operation of laboratory assets. The program provides the groundwork for decarbonization strategies centered around building operation. This paper outlines best practices employed by NREL to develop a cross-cutting Smart Labs team, garner managerial support, and effectively communicate of goals around safety and energy. Strategies include specific Smart Labs best practices, such as implementing a Laboratory Ventilation Risk Assessment - a systematic process for identifying risk due to airborne hazards and informing dynamic, demand-based ventilation to optimize safety and efficiency.

decarbonization↗
DOE OSTI2022

High Efficiency Heat Pumps Can Pave the Path for Building Decarbonization in Cold Climates: Preprint

Heat pumps play an instrumental role in buildings decarbonization strategies. Recent advances in heat pump systems employ variable-speed compressor technology and electronically commutated fan motors. Inherently, the heating capacity and efficiency of heat pumps decrease with falling outdoor temperatures. Compared to single-speed heat pumps, variable speed systems can maintain higher heating and cooling efficiencies over a wider range of outdoor temperatures. The goal of this multi-phase project was to determine the energy savings of a high efficiency, variable-speed, air-source, split system heat pump designed for cold climate applications. The first project phase was to evaluate the performance of the heat pump in the laboratory under varying outdoor conditions in heating and cooling modes. The second phase was to translate the laboratory-measured performance into lookup tables for EnergyPlus hourly building simulation engine. Then, two sets of annual building simulations were performed using typical meteorological year weather from the Chicago-O'Hare airport for three different building types (a single-family residence, a strip mall, and a low-rise office building). The first set simulated a standard efficiency heat pump while the second set utilized the phase two performance tables to model a high efficiency heat pump. The high efficiency heat pump produced significant annual heating energy savings in all three buildings. The variable speed compressor and fan control also contributed to cooling energy savings. The simulated annual energy savings ranged from 22% to 35% over their respective baseline. The project's findings helped a Midwest electric utility, Commonwealth Edison (ComEd), design new incentives around high efficiency heat pumps.

cold climate heat pump↗
DOE OSTI2022

Efficient Refrigerated Display Cases - Can They Flex Their Power? Preprint

Refrigerated display cases are widely-used, critical equipment in supermarkets for maintaining product safety and quality. Energy-efficient medium temperature liquid-cooled refrigerated display cases can save 25-70% of the total supermarket energy, according to manufacturers. Traditionally, cases operate by maintaining a temperature around a user-input setpoint that is dependent on the product in the case. Although cases are major electrical energy consumers, they are hardly ever considered for implementing load-flexibility strategies. With added load-flexibility capabilities, refrigerated display cases can shed (reduce), or shift (by adding and subsequently shedding) load. Supermarkets can reduce their energy costs and enhance electric grid integrity by implementing these smart load-flexibility control strategies. Advanced controls can also enable load-shifting to coincide with optimum periods of renewable energy generation. This will further improve operational costs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions without compromising food safety and quality. In this research, we have evaluated the energy savings of liquid-cooled medium temperature display cases and developed load flexibility strategies leveraging an advanced controls system, a variable speed compressor, and heat rejection via a water-cooled condenser. This study further assessed the impact of load flexibility strategies in a controlled environment chamber for a single refrigerated display case.

ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION↗
DOE OSTI2022

Accelerating Optimal Integration of Energy Efficiency Strategies with Industrialized Modular Construction: Preprint

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL's) Industrialized Construction Innovation team first introduced the Industrialized Construction Assessment Framework to achieve affordable, net-zero energy (NZE) modular multifamily buildings in the 2020 ACEEE paper "Integrating Energy Efficiency Strategies with Industrialized Construction for our Clean Energy Future." Since then, NREL has continued to drive the ambitious plan to accelerate optimal integration of energy efficiency strategies during industrialized construction with little or no additional cost, labor, and production time. This follow-on paper introduces the Energy in Modular (EMOD) buildings method and presents NREL's research efforts over the last two years in collaboration with industry, including affordable housing partners. NREL has developed an idealized NZE modular multifamily building design that incorporates five energy efficiency strategies well suited for industrialized construction in factories: (1) envelope thermal control, (2) envelope infiltration control, (3) mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems, (4) smart controls, and (5) solar plus storage. This paper highlights results from leveraging design for manufacturing and assembly principles, testing, and validation pilots with factory partners; demonstrating pod prototypes in test stand at NREL; and performing simulations. Overall, these research efforts address barriers to whole-building system integration, such as poor installation quality of thermal and air barriers; lack of unitized systems for space conditioning, energy recovery and ventilation, and water heating; problematic on-site installation, commissioning, and configuration of controls; and lack of cost-effective integration for grid-friendly design and emerging technologies. Conclusively, the paper delineates next steps for future work with NREL's partners toward developing a transformational pathway for our clean energy future.

affordable housing↗
DOE OSTI2022

Enhancing Worker Safety During Off-Site Construction of Energy-Efficient, Low-Carbon Exterior Envelope

The construction industry is not doing enough to embrace off-site modular construction. It is a missed opportunity for optimized energy efficiency because prefabricated exterior wall envelopes are lower in cost and faster and easier to install. Factory off-site construction offers improved safety for construction workers because work is done in a controlled environment, but lack of intent, understanding, and data is also a missed opportunity for enhancing worker safety. This research looks specifically at the prefabricated wall exterior envelope in the context of safety. The research question is "off-site factories build with ease of energy efficiency and lowered carbon emissions, but is the process safer?" This research was funded by NREL Student Training in Applied Research (STAR) program, University Partnerships Program, and Wells Fargo Bank. Key finding is that modular and prefabricated construction are perceived to be safer, but the accident rates are much higher than in the general construction and manufacturing industries. Proposed solutions to decrease accidents in off-site prefabricated construction includes safety training for workers, provide movable kiosks with PPE at workstations, ensure tools are well-maintained and place safety posters in visible locations. Future work includes improving worker safety to increase worker productivity, perform pilot demonstration, work with factory designers for new modular layout for worker safety, i.e., easy access to PPE kiosks, and work closely with OSHA so that they take notice of this safety niche.

drywall↗
DOE OSTI2022

Engaging a Diverse Workforce in the Building Sciences Through the JUMP Into STEM Program: Impact Study; Preprint

Ensuring inclusivity in building science professions requires engaging people from underrepresented demographics; unfortunately, many races, ethnicities, and genders continue to be underrepresented. The JUMP into STEM program works to rectify this, encouraging creative ideation and highlighting the unique perspectives of a diverse array of students. The top students are awarded internships that provide opportunities to work in building science research with close supervision from mentors in the field. In the research presented here, we investigate the impact of participation in JUMP into STEM on students' careers, including the impact on students from diverse backgrounds. Furthermore, we research students' awareness of career opportunities in building science, students' perception of their ability to meaningfully contribute to this field, and the career building opportunities that JUMP into STEM provides for students. Through participant interviews and data analysis, we measure program diversity, inclusion, and effectiveness at achieving goals. We find that among the hundreds of students who have participated in this program, more than 25 different majors and/or educational degree programs are represented and more than 45% of students attend minority serving institutions or historically black colleges and universities. The JUMP into STEM experience had a significant effect on career choices or career development for more than 80% of participants. Our results also indicate that the JUMP into STEM program is effective at promoting diversity in the building sciences and is successfully contributing to the larger effort within the building science industry to promote and ensure equity in technological progress and innovation.

building energy science↗
DOE OSTI2022

Convincing Clients to Make Zero a Reality: Preprint

As buildings are the largest end-users of carbon-intensive energy in the United States, it is critical that design and construction professionals implement energy-efficient and sustainable building designs and systems. Building owners seeking building energy performance improvements, either with new construction or retrofit of existing facilities, usually need the expertise of design and construction professionals to guide them through the process. These "trusted advisers" make the design decisions that ultimately result in the energy performance of the building. Members of the design and construction community have identified that clients' perception of cost associated with such designs and building upgrades have posed the most significant barrier to increased adoption. If solved, this would enable design and construction firms to better engage as trusted advisors along the lines of energy and carbon reduction of the built environment. NREL has developed a resource that helps design and construction professionals and their clients match their projects with financial incentives. A newly developed cohort of design and construction professionals, as part of the U.S. Department of Energy's Better Buildings Initiative, has brought real-world project experiences to the development process, contributing meaningful insights that have been critical to evaluating the successes of and providing direction to this much needed financial guide.

Better Buildings↗
DOE OSTI2022

Advancing Federal Infrastructure Through Innovation

Presentation provides an overview of federal carbon reduction policy; net-zero emission building, campus, and installation design; performance targets; and decarbonization strategies.

carbon reduction policy↗