Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “Net Zero Energy”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 145 records · Page 8
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2012

West Village Community: Quality Management Processes and Preliminary Heat Pump Water Heater Performance

West Village, a multi-use project underway at the University of California Davis, represents a ground-breaking sustainable community incorporating energy efficiency measures and on-site renewable generation to achieve community-level Zero Net Energy (ZNE) goals. When complete, the project will provide housing for students, faculty, and staff with a vision to minimize the community’s impact on energy use by reducing building energy use, providing on-site generation, and encouraging alternative forms of transportation. This focus of this research is on the 192 student apartments that were completed in 2011 under Phase I of the West Village multi-year project. The numerous aggressive energy efficiency measures implemented result in estimated source energy savings of 37% over the B10 Benchmark. There are two primary objectives of this research. The first is to evaluate performance and efficiency of the central heat pump water heaters as a strategy to provide efficient electric water heating for net-zero all-electric buildings and where natural gas is not available on site. In addition, effectiveness of the quality assurance and quality control processes implemented to ensure proper system commissioning and to meet program participation requirements is evaluated. Recommendations for improvements that could improve successful implementation for large-scale, high performance communities are identified.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2016

BEopt-CA (Ex) -- A Tool for Optimal Integration of EE/DR/ES+PV in Existing California Homes. Cooperative Research and Development Final Report, CRADA Number CRD-11-429

Opportunities for combining energy efficiency, demand response, and energy storage with PV are often missed, because the required knowledge and expertise for these different technologies exist in separate organizations or individuals. Furthermore, there is a lack of quantitative tools to optimize energy efficiency, demand response and energy storage with PV, especially for existing buildings. Our goal is to develop a modeling tool, BEopt-CA (Ex), with capabilities to facilitate identification and implementation of a balanced integration of energy efficiency (EE), demand response (DR), and energy storage (ES) with photovoltaics (PV) within the residential retrofit market. To achieve this goal, we will adapt and extend an existing tool -- BEopt -- that is designed to identify optimal combinations of efficiency and PV in new home designs. In addition, we will develop multifamily residential modeling capabilities for use in California, to facilitate integration of distributed solar power into the grid in order to maximize its value to California ratepayers. The project is follow-on research that leverages previous California Solar Initiative RD&D investment in the BEopt software. BEopt facilitates finding the least cost combination of energy efficiency and renewables to support integrated DSM (iDSM) and Zero Net Energy (ZNE) in California residential buildings. However, BEopt is currently focused on modeling single-family houses and does not include satisfactory capabilities for modeling multifamily homes. The project brings BEopt's existing modeling and optimization capabilities to multifamily buildings, including duplexes, triplexes, townhouses, flats, and low-rise apartment buildings.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2018

Making Progress toward Net Zero Sites in the Army Reserve through Analysis of Multiple Scenarios

The U.S. Army Reserve (USAR) prioritized achieving net zero as part of its Sustainability Program in 2013, and developed a pilot that investigated net zero energy, water, and waste at 10 sites. Pilot sites were selected based on mission requirements for energy and water resilience and the likelihood of achieving the technical and economic thresholds for net zero. USAR owns and operates hundreds of sites that typically consist of between 2 and 10 buildings. The pilot sites were intentionally dispersed across the U.S. and its territories to provide a range of geographic characteristics where the net zero potential could be analyzed and solutions could be developed. For the Army, changes to operations must support the mission and enhance readiness, which includes increasing efficiency and resiliency. To facilitate alignment of project prioritization with different goals and site-specific needs, a net zero roadmap outlined three scenarios for project implementation: (1) cost-effective measures, (2) net zero measures, and (3) recommended measures. Each scenario included the same measures for some sites, while others had three different outcomes. USAR has used these roadmaps to plan and execute projects and move toward net zero at multiple sites since 2014, with the primary focus on the cost-effective and recommended scenarios. As conditions and costs change, additional measures required to achieve net zero are considered. This paper describes the methodology deployed for analyzing net zero for the USAR and discusses the benefits of working toward net zero under three distinct scenarios.

Net Zero↗
DOE OSTI2018

State-of-the-Art Analysis of Nearly Zero Energy Buildings

The IEA HPT Annex 49 "Design and integration of heat pumps for Nearly Zero Energy Buildings" deals with the design and integration of heat pumps as core component of the HVAC system for Nearly or Net Zero energy buildings (NZEB).

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2017

Sacramento State Solar Decathlon 2015: Research Performance Final Report

Our primary objective is to design and build a 600-1000sf home that produces more energy than it consumes and to showcase this home at the 2015 Solar Decathlon in Irvine, CA. Further objectives are to educate consumers and home builders, alike (including K-12 students – the industry’s future consumers), inspire a shift towards the adoption of net-zero energy solutions in residential building, and to be a leader in the transformation of the California residential marketplace to a net-zero standard. Our specific mission statement for this project is as follows: Solar NEST strives to discover the future of sustainable, energy-efficient housing and deliver these innovations to home buyers at an affordable price. To make substantial improvements to conventional building methods with regard to aesthetics, performance, and affordability. Through our efforts, we aspire to bridge the gap between ‘what is’ and ‘what is possible’ by providing unique, elegant simplicity.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2024

SPBMI Microgrid

The SPBMI Microgrid Project aims to achieve four primary objectives that support. the tribe’s strategic goals, plans, and mission: 1) Ensure the availability of resilient energy for five essential tribal facilities as identified in the San Pasqual Hazard Mitigation Plan and described in the San Pasqual Energy & Resiliency Plan; 2) Provide solar generation sufficient to achieve net-zero energy consumption at the five essential facilities; 3) Reduce the tribe’s lifetime levelized costs of energy (LCOE); and 4) Support tribal energy objectives including reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Secondary objectives include supporting local workforce development and employment, in part by utilizing commercially available and warranted technologies that can be operated and maintained by tribal staff. Expected outcomes from the project include substantially eliminating long-duration disruptions to essential tribal services due to utility outages (which totaled 34 hours in 2017); reducing lifetime energy costs by approximately $1.75 million; and producing approximately 6.5 GWh of renewable electricity over the system’s lifetime.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2014

Building America Case Study: New Town Builders' Power of Zero Energy Center, Denver, Colorado (Brochure)

New Town Builders, a builder of energy efficient homes in Denver, Colorado, offers a zero energy option for all the homes it builds. To attract a wide range of potential homebuyers to its energy efficient homes, New Town Builders created a 'Power of Zero Energy Center' linked to its model home in the Stapleton community of Denver. This case study presents New Town Builders' marketing approach, which is targeted to appeal to homebuyers' emotions rather than overwhelming homebuyers with scientific details about the technology. The exhibits in the Power of Zero Energy Center focus on reduced energy expenses for the homeowner, improved occupant comfort, the reputation of the builder, and the lack of sacrificing the homebuyers' desired design features to achieve zero net energy in the home. The case study also contains customer and realtor testimonials related to the effectiveness of the Center in influencing homebuyers to purchase a zero energy home.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2014

New Whole-House Solutions Case Study: New Town Builders' Power of Zero Energy Center - Denver, Colorado

New Town Builders, a builder of energy efficient homes in Denver, Colorado, offers a zero energy option for all the homes it builds. To attract a wide range of potential homebuyers to its energy efficient homes, New Town Builders created a "Power of Zero Energy Center" linked to its model home in the Stapleton community. This case study presents New Town Builders' marketing approach, which is targeted to appeal to homebuyers' emotions rather than overwhelming homebuyers with scientific details about the technology. The exhibits in the Power of Zero Energy Center focus on reduced energy expenses for the homeowner, improved occupant comfort, the reputation of the builder, and the lack of sacrificing the homebuyers' desired design features to achieve zero net energy in the home. This case study also contains customer and realtor testimonials related to the effectiveness of the Center in influencing homebuyers to purchase a zero energy home.

Building America↗
DOE OSTI2023

The Circular Home: Development and Demonstration of a Net Negative Carbon, Reusable Residence

This project started the development of an innovative modular building system intended for residential construction. The project was centered around single-family homes that were carbon-negative cradle-to-grave over a 100 year time frame, which is approximately double the current standard for operational life. The project sought to accomplish this objective by designing the modular home in a manner that ensures circularity, where the main house components can be used over several consecutive 50-year lifespans. To accomplish these objectives, this project utilized integrated design with the inclusion of life-cycle assessment to design the single-family house for architectural, structural, energy, mechanical, thermal, and moisture demands, while ensuring carbon negativity and annual net-zero energy use. The core technology of this project was the use of cross-laminated timber and biogenic materials, such as wood-fiber insulation, in the construction of the modular building units. The robustness and factory manufacturing ability of cross-laminated timber allow for factory construction of most of the home, which minimizes on-site time, saving money and reducing construction waste. During this project, initial milestones were met that delivered the architectural plans for the circular home and an initial structural testing matrix. Compared to current code-built homes, which average 13 kg CO2eq. / ft2 and are demolished at their end of life, the circular home has an estimated -30 kg CO2eq. / ft2 of embodied carbon emissions during its first build iteration. It is estimated that approximately 60%-70% of the total building mass could be reused and/or recycled during subsequent rebuilds. This project was concluded at approximately the 1/3 point and a separate project was established to conclude the remaining milestones. This project promises to benefit the public by delivering another option for single-family, and eventually multi-family, housing using a novel building construction system. The system of reusable modular construction facilitates not only lower emissions during the first building iteration, but also lower emissions during subsequent iterations that drastically reduce waste and help society meet its climate goals. Many other industries, such as clothing and technology sectors, are starting to focus on circularity and this project adds the residential building construction industry to that list.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2025

Supercritical water desalination and oxidation (SCWDO): Effectiveness on complex solutions, technoeconomic, and CO 2 impact for produced water treatment

The modern energy-economy is increasingly causing the production of highly saline brines, including from produced water. Supercritical water desalination can concentrate and extract minerals from these brines, but the effects of mixed salt interactions, organic degradation with additives, and the technology's economics are not well understood at supercritical condition. The present study evaluated and experimentally studied an integrated supercritical water desalination and oxidation (SCWDO) process for treating real-produced water samples from oil/natural gas field. The complex interactions between the various anions and cations in produced water were extensively evaluated. Most of the divalent and trivalent ions were extracted below 250 °C while the majority of the monovalent salt were removed between 380 to 410 °C. The treated real produced water was of drinking water quality, with <500 mg/l of total dissolved solid (TDS) and with 100% organics removal. Furthermore, the heat liberated during the organic oxidation could be utilized internally and for electricity generation for enhanced the energy efficiency and lower cost of produced water treatment. With system optimization, the proposed SCWDO process can essentially be made a net zero energy process. A novel process flow diagram for the commercial scale self-powered hybrid SCWDO technology was proposed as a cost-effective produced water treatment to mitigate the environmental crises. Techno-economic analysis showed that produced water treatment cost with SCWDO can be reduced to 2–3 $/m 3 and can be up to 60 % cheaper to traditional deep well reinjection. Additionally, the proposed SCWDO process could achieve net negative CO 2 emission.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2015

Fort Carson Building 1860 Biomass Heating Analysis Report

As part of the Army Net-Zero Energy Installation program, the Fort Carson Army Base requested that NREL evaluate the feasibility of adding a biomass boiler to the district heating system served by Building 1860. We have also developed an Excel-spreadsheet-based decision support tool--specific to the historic loads served by Building 1860--with which users can perform what-if analysis on gas costs, biomass costs, and other parameters. For economic reasons, we do not recommend adding a biomass system at this time.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2012

Recovery Act: Training Program Development for Commercial Building Equipment Technicians (Final Scientific/Technical Report)

The overall goal of this project has been to develop curricula, certification requirements, and accreditation standards for training on energy efficient practices and technologies for commercial building technicians. These training products will advance industry expertise towards net-zero energy commercial building goals and will result in a substantial reduction in energy use. The ultimate objective is to develop a workforce that can bring existing commercial buildings up to their energy performance potential and ensure that new commercial buildings do not fall below their expected optimal level of performance. Commercial building equipment technicians participating in this training program will learn how to best operate commercial buildings to ensure they reach their expected energy performance level. The training is a combination of classroom, online and on-site lessons. The Texas Engineering Extension Service (TEEX) developed curricula using subject matter and adult learning experts to ensure the training meets certification requirements and accreditation standards for training these technicians. The training targets a specific climate zone to meets the needs, specialized expertise, and perspectives of the commercial building equipment technicians in that zone. The combination of efficient operations and advanced design will improve the internal built environment of a commercial building by increasing comfort and safety, while reducing energy use and environmental impact. Properly trained technicians will ensure equipment operates at design specifications. A second impact is a more highly trained workforce that is better equipped to obtain employment. Organizations that contributed to the development of the training program include TEEX and the Texas Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) (both members of The Texas A&M University System). TEES is also a member of the Building Commissioning Association. This report includes a description of the project accomplishments, including the course development phases, tasks associated with each phase, and detailed list of the course materials developed. A summary of each year's activities is also included.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2015

Energy-Efficient Supermarket Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning in Humid Climates in the United States

Supermarkets are energy-intensive buildings that consume the greatest amount of electricity per square foot of building of any building type in the United States and represent 5% of total U.S. commercial building primary energy use (EIA 2005). Refrigeration and heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems are responsible for a large proportion of supermarkets’ total energy use. These two systems sometimes work together and sometimes compete, but the performance of one system always affects the performance of the other. To better understand these challenges and opportunities, the Commercial Buildings team at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory investigated several of the most promising strategies for providing energy-efficient HVAC for supermarkets and quantified the resulting energy use and costs using detailed simulations. This research effort was conducted on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Commercial Building Partnerships (CBP) (Baechler et al. 2012; Parrish et al. 2013; Antonopoulos et al. 2014; Hirsch et al. 2014). The goal of CBP was to reduce energy use in the commercial building sector by creating, testing, and validating design concepts on the pathway to net zero energy commercial buildings. Several CBP partners owned or operated buildings containing supermarkets and were interested in optimizing the energy efficiency of supermarket HVAC systems in hot-humid climates. These partners included Walmart, Target, Whole Foods Market, SUPERVALU, and the Defense Commissary Agency.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2018

Energy Savings Analysis of the Proposed NYStretch-Energy Code 2018

This study was conducted by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in support of the stretch energy code development led by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). In 2017 NYSERDA developed its 2016 Stretch Code Supplement to the 2016 New York State Energy Conservation Construction Code (hereinafter referred to as “NYStretch-Energy”). NYStretch-Energy is intended as a model energy code for statewide voluntary adoption that anticipates other code advancements culminating in the goal of a statewide Net Zero Energy Code by 2028. Since then, NYSERDA continues to develop the NYStretch-Energy Code 2018 edition. To support the effort, PNNL conducted energy simulation analysis to quantify the energy savings of proposed commercial provisions of the NYStretch-Energy Code (2018) in New York. The focus of this project is the 20% improvement over existing commercial model energy codes. A key requirement of the proposed stretch code is that it be ‘adoptable’ as an energy code, meaning that it must align with current code scope and limitations, and primarily impact building components that are currently regulated by local building departments. It is largely limited to prescriptive measures, which are what most building departments and design projects are most familiar with. This report describes a set of energy-efficiency measures (EEMs) that demonstrate 20% energy savings over ANSI/ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.1-2013 (ASHRAE 2013) across a broad range of commercial building types and all three climate zones in New York. In collaboration with New Building Institute, the EEMs were developed from national model codes and standards, high-performance building codes and standards, regional energy codes, and measures being proposed as part of the on-going code development process. PNNL analyzed these measures using whole building energy models for selected prototype commercial buildings and multifamily buildings representing buildings in New York. Section 2 of this report describes the analysis methodology, including the building types and construction area weights update for this analysis, the baseline, and the method to conduct the energy saving analysis. Section 3 provides detailed specifications of the EEMs and bundles. Section 4 summarizes the results of individual EEMs and EEM bundles by building type, energy end-use and climate zone. Appendix A documents detailed descriptions of the selected prototype buildings. Appendix B provides energy end-use breakdown results by building type for both the baseline code and stretch code in all climate zones.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2018

Final Energy Savings Analysis of the Proposed NYStretch-Energy Code 2018

This study was conducted by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in support of the stretch energy code development led by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). In 2017 NYSERDA developed its 2016 Stretch Code Supplement to the 2016 New York State Energy Conservation Construction Code (hereinafter referred to as “NYStretch-Energy”). NYStretch-Energy is intended as a model energy code for statewide voluntary adoption that anticipates other code advancements culminating in the goal of a statewide Net Zero Energy Code by 2028. Since then, NYSERDA continues to develop the NYStretch-Energy Code 2018 edition (NYSERDA 2018). To support the effort, PNNL conducted energy simulation analysis to quantify the energy savings of proposed commercial provisions of the NYStretch-Energy Code 2018 in New York. The focus of this project is to significantly improve the energy efficiency over existing commercial model energy codes. A key requirement of the proposed stretch code is that it be ‘adoptable’ as an energy code, meaning that it must align with current code scope and limitations, and primarily impact building components that are currently regulated by local building departments. It is largely limited to prescriptive measures, which are what most building departments and design projects are most familiar with. This report describes a set of energy-efficiency measures (EEMs) that demonstrate significant energy savings over ANSI/ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.1-2013 (ASHRAE 2013) across a broad range of commercial building types and all three climate zones in New York. In collaboration with New Building Institute, the EEMs were developed from national model codes and standards, high-performance building codes and standards, regional energy codes, and measures being proposed as part of the on-going code development process. PNNL analyzed these measures using whole building energy models for selected prototype commercial buildings and multifamily buildings representing buildings in New York.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2016

Energy Innovations for Healthy Buildings

Healthy buildings provide high indoor environmental quality for occupants while simultaneously reducing energy consumption. This project advanced the development and marketability of envisioned healthy, energy-efficient buildings through studies that evaluated the use of emerging technologies in commercial and residential buildings. The project also provided resources required for homebuilders to participate in DOE’s Builders Challenge, concomitant with the goal to reduce energy consumption in homes by at least 30% as a first step toward achieving envisioned widespread availability of net-zero energy homes by 2030. In addition, the project included outreach and education concerning energy efficiency in buildings.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2020

Energy Master Planning for Resilient Public Communities—Best Practices from U.S. Military Installations

Until recently, most planners at military installations addressed energy systems for new facilities on an individual facility basis without consideration of community-wide goals relevant to energy sources, renewables, storage, or future energy generation needs. Building retrofits of public buildings typically do not address energy needs beyond the minimum code requirements making it difficult, if not impossible, to achieve community-level targets on a building-by-building basis. Planning on the basis of cost and general reliability may also fail to deliver community-level resilience. For example, many building code requirements focus on hardening to specific threats, but in a multi-building community, only a few of these buildings may be mission-critical. Over the past two decades, the frequency and duration of regional power outages and water utility disruptions from weather, man-made events, and aging infrastructure have increased. Major disruptions of electric and thermal energy have degraded critical mission capabilities and caused significant economic impacts. In 2016, the U.S. Department of Defense issued guidance that each Service (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines) complete comprehensive energy plans for the installations that consumed 75% of total building energy. Guidance was updated in 2017 to include metrics for energy resilience, and in some cases, water. This paper describes how community level quantitative and qualitative resilience analysis and metrics have been incorporated into community energy and water planning best practices for military installations in three geographically diverse locations. It is based on research performed under the International Energy Agency’s “Energy in Buildings and Communities Program Annex 73,” focusing on development of guidelines and tools that support the planning of Net Zero Energy Resilient Public Communities as well as research performed under the Department of Defense Environmental Security Technology Certification Program project EW18-D1- 5281, “Technologies Integration to Achieve Resilient, Low- Energy Military Installations.” The first case study reviews progress made on an energy and water planning study conducted at Fort Bliss, Texas. The second and third describes planning conducted at Fort Bragg, North Carolina and the Joint Region Marianas, Guam, respectively, under the updated guidance from 2017 regarding energy and water resilience. Analysis methods, key metrics, and key infrastructure and operational constraints are described, as well as technical, economic and business concepts used during the planning process.

Urban, Angela B.↗