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The 2018 BTO Peer Review was held April 30–May 3, 2018, at the DoubleTree Crystal City in Arlington, Virginia. The review was attended by more than 480 participants and included presentations on 115 projects representing three of BTO’s five technology programs.
To ensure BTO projects are relevant, effective, and productively assisting the Office in meeting its goals, BTO conducts an annual peer review. The peer review is a formal, documented evaluation process that uses objective criteria and qualified independent reviewers to judge BTO-funded projects in terms of their technical, scientific, or business merit; actual or anticipated results; and productivity and effectiveness. Knowledge about the quality and effectiveness of current BTO projects and programs is essential for improving existing activities and informing future efforts. The BTO Peer Review is free and open to the public and provides an opportunity to learn more about BTO’s various projects and initiatives as well as promote collaborations and partnerships.
The major purpose of this project is to enable the development of compressors specifically designed for compatibility with low–global warming potential (GWP) refrigerants (with GWP values below 150). These compressors are intended for applications in residential and light commercial air-conditioning and heat pump systems. This report contains an exhaustive review of the existing literature with the intention of discerning the most efficacious methodologies currently in use for compressor modeling. This fundamental stage was designed to foster a comprehensive understanding of the intricate dynamics and mechanics of compressors. As a result, a model (PDSim) was selected to simulate scroll, rotary and linear compressor technologies.
Due to increasing concerns about global warming, various environmental regulations will eventually phase out refrigerants used in air conditioning and refrigeration systems (e.g., R-410A, R-404A). Several refrigerants have been proposed as replacements, offering a variety of global warming potential (GWP), levels of energy efficiency and flammability. Some of these options are synthetic HFC/HFO mixtures such as R-454C and R-455A while other are commonly called naturals such as R-290 (Propane) and R-744 (Carbon Dioxide). This study discusses the merits of the leading options for air Conditioning and refrigeration systems. The fundamental requirements (environmental, performance, safety) are employed to fairly evaluate these options. Performance data and Life Cycle analysis results for these options are presented. Overall, this study provides information needed to judge the prospects of getting adequate replacement for R-410A and R-404A in a long-term sustainable basis.
Rapid deployment of residential photovoltaic (PV) systems helps decarbonize our electricity supplies, but under certain circumstances, high-penetration PV may pose challenges to the electrical distribution grid. In a project funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Solar Energy Technologies Office and Building Technologies Office, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and its partners studied how flexible building loads and battery storage, when coordinated at home-level and community-level scales, can be used to address those challenges and enhance grid resilience. In this webinar, we will discuss the methodology, simulation and field pilot results, insights from partners, and lessons learned from the project.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Building Technologies Office Commercial Building Integration group conducts evaluations of new energy efficiency technologies as part of the High Impact Technology Catalyst program. The subject of this field validation project is an air cleaning technology that removes gaseous contaminants from indoor air to reduce outdoor air ventilation requirements. Reducing the volume of outdoor air required reduces heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) loads and can provide significant energy savings for some buildings in certain climates. The technology, called the HLR (HVAC Load Reduction), was developed by enVerid. The technology uses a solid regenerable sorbent material that was developed by DOE's National Energy Technology Laboratory and licensed to the vendor for this application. The sorbent material was originally developed to adsorb carbon dioxide (CO2); the vendor continued to develop the sorbent and the overall system so that it can also remove volatile organic compounds (including aldehydes), carbon monoxide, ozone, and particulate matter 2.5 micrometers in diameter or smaller (PM2.5) from the air. This material has low regeneration temperature requirements, and its sorption properties are unaffected by humidity levels, both of which are beneficial for building applications.
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Building Technologies Office (BTO), Commercial Buildings Integration (CBI) Program supports the adoption of zero energy ready buildings design practices through targeted Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) workforce development. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) identified the opportunity to provided targeted training to those professionals that have the greatest potential to impact adoption and successful design outcomes of zero energy ready buildings projects. In January 2018, ASHRAE released Achieving Zero Energy: Advanced Energy Design Guide for K-12 School Buildings (AEDG). The AEDG was developed in collaboration with NREL, American Institute of Architects (AIA), American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), and Illuminating Engineers Society (IES). The purpose of this CRADA was to create a partnership between NREL, AIA, ASHRAE, USGBC, and IES to create and host on-demand, web-based training based on the AEDG.
This report documents additions and upgrades to the Building America Solution Center, https://basc.pnnl.gov, a web-based resource developed and maintained by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Building Technology Office. The Building America Solution Center makes research funded by DOE through its Building America program more readily accessible and easily searchable by members of the residential building and remodeling community, including builders, contractors, installers, remodelers, code officials, raters, manufacturers, sales professionals, and building science researchers. This report fulfills 1.5.2.75 PNNL - Building America Research Dissemination, Milestone 4, "Prepare an annual summary of significant platform maintenance activities and all content uploaded to the BASC site (Tasks 1 & 2)."
Through its grid-interactive efficient building (GEB) research, the DOE Building Technologies Office seeks to build on existing energy-efficiency efforts and develop technological capabilities to optimize the interplay between building loads and the electric grid. This report analyzes connected lighting systems and consumer electronics/IT equipment technologies. All lighting technologies are assumed to be lighting-emitting diode (LED) or organic LED (OLED) technologies. These technologies are analyzed in two separate sections and the evaluations are not meant to be comparable to each other or other building technologies.
The Federal Justice40 Initiative directs at least 40% of the overall benefits of certain clean energy investments to flow to disadvantaged communities and requires that all federal programs covered by Justice40 consult stakeholders to determine the program benefits, and that the flow of benefits to disadvantaged communities is tracked and reported. Unequal distribution of benefits, in terms of access to clean energy research, design, development, and deployment, can disproportionately benefit or burden certain communities. This can result in higher rates of pollution, negative health effects, and increased energy burdens and insecurities in disadvantaged communities. Programs focused on decarbonizing the built environment can enhance health, quality of life, and economic opportunities for impacted communities. This guidance document, developed by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Building Technologies Office, provides best practices and approaches for incorporating energy justice and equity principles into building technology deployment activities. It provides best practices and recommendations for communicating with and involving disadvantaged communities and target building sectors in program activities, along with methods to monitor and report the distribution of benefits to these sectors. This document lays out a set of strategies, metrics, and best practices that can be implemented over time to apply energy justice and equity approaches, whether the program is just starting out or ongoing. Although this guidance was designed for Building Technologies Office technology deployment programs, the best practices, recommendations, and methods can be valuable to any program concerned with the equitable deployment of clean energy technologies. The goal of this project is to enable the equitable development, deployment, and adoption of clean energy technologies and practices.
The Advanced Building Construction (ABC) Initiative from the U.S. Department of Energy Building Technologies Office is working to accelerate industrialized construction innovations for decarbonizing buildings. To inform performance and cost targets for research under the ABC Initiative, this analysis used the ResStock™ tool to evaluate the energy savings, utility bill impacts, and carbon emissions impacts of four simulated upgrade packages with specific target performance levels on a large sample of residential dwelling units (approximately 550,000) representative of the U.S. housing stock.
Through its grid-interactive efficient building (GEB) research, DOE’s Building Technologies Office seeks to build on existing energy-efficiency efforts to optimize the interplay among energy efficiency, demand response, behind-the-meter generation and energy storage to increase the flexibility of demand-side management. BTO envisions a future where buildings dynamically operate as part of a low cost, reliable electricity grid while meeting the needs and expectations of building occupants.
The U.S. power grid is being transformed to make it smarter, more efficient, and cleaner. This transformation is leading to the addition of a significant of energy generated by distributed, variable, and renewable resources. Because of the variable nature of renewable generation, the short- and long-term supply and demand imbalances are less predictable, and conventional approaches to mitigating the imbalances will be less efficient or cost effective. To address this challenge and to support the mission and the vision of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Building Technologies Office has developed a Grid-Interactive Efficient Building Strategy. The strategy focuses on simultaneously improving building energy efficiency and supporting reliability and resilience of the electric grid more efficiently and at a lower cost. In addition, EERE and DOE’s Office of Electricity created an initiative led by DOE and supported by the national laboratories under the Grid Modernization Lab Consortium structure to enhance grid modernization. The work reported in this document is part of the first set of projects funded under the initiative to design, develop, and validate scalable transactive control technologies for the commercial buildings sector. Transactive controls requires the ability of individual end-use loads to express flexibility as a function of a transactive signal (e.g., price). Empirical grey- and black-box models have been widely used to express flexibility. Although this approach is generally easy to construct and simple to use, it does not capture non-linear behavior that some end-use loads represent. Therefore, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) with support from Western Washington University conducted this research to explore the use of deep machine learning (ML) techniques. The work reported in this document is limited to forecasting whole building electricity consumption, the zone airflow and the zone temperature predictions.
This needs assessment was conducted by the Washington State University (WSU) Energy Program and Building Science Corporation (BSC), with support from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Building Technologies Office. The primary goal of this research was to identify moisture durability, energy savings, and savings-to-investment ratio (SIR) research needs related to the retrofit of attic insulation in the DOE Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP). Specifically, manufactured homes that comply with building codes established by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) built after 1976 and sited in colder climates. This project assessed current practice of WAP insulation and/or roof venting solutions that improve attic insulation energy savings and durability. WSU and BSC conducted outreach to stakeholders via email, phone, one-on-one interviews, and group meetings designed to inquire about relevant issues that they may have observed. Needs assessment feedback was provided from stakeholders involved with attic insulation retrofits in existing HUD-code manufactured housing in the colder climates of the United States. The list of more than 50 stakeholders who provided input into this needs assessment is provided in Appendix A.
This report is a compilation of information from Quarter Progress Reports submitted to the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency Building Technologies Office (BTO) by SunPower Corporation. The report has been uploaded to OSTI by DOE as a substitute for the required Final Technical Report which was never received from the project recipient.
Buildings account for 35% of CO 2 emissions and almost 40% of the United States’ energy use. High-performance homes and neighborhoods play an important role in supporting efforts to decarbonize the US power system by 2035. Significant reductions in CO 2 emissions within the residential sector can be realized through electrification of loads paired with the flexibility created by leveraging smart Internet of Things (IoT) capabilities to shift energy use based on grid signals, thus improving generation/distribution efficiency and maximizing the use of renewable generation capacity. All of this can be achieved while allowing smart home appliances and equipment to meet homeowner needs – including reducing power bills - while optimizing operation in conjunction with the grid using novel control techniques. The Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings Roadmap by the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Building Technologies Office (BTO) notes that implementing grid-interactive efficient building (GEB) technology has the potential to reduce CO 2 emissions by 80 million tons/year—roughly equivalent to 17 million cars. To achieve this vision, the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)—in collaboration with Southern Company Research & Development, Alabama Power, Georgia Power, BTO and the US DOE’s Office of Electricity (OE) —is developing and demonstrating novel connected communities at two locations. Southern Company in turn engaged with industry partners, including design firms, residential developers, and residential HVAC and appliance manufacturers because their participation would be critical to the success of the initial research project, as well as the future scaling to the Southern Company service territory and beyond. Impacts of the Connected Communities projects in Alabama and Georgia are outlined including: energy, grid services and data management learnings; homeowner feedback; vendor engagement; adoption by utilities; technical, policy and business model challenges.
In 2020, the U.S. Department of Energy's Building Technologies Office (BTO) launched the Advanced Building Construction (ABC) Initiative. This initiative aimed to integrate energy efficiency into high-production construction practices. One focus area of the initiative is off-site construction, an approach that may achieve scalable, efficient, and high-performing construction buildings through process standardization. This report presents the findings and recommendations from our ABC Initiative project: A New State of the Art: Zero-Energy Modular Multifamily Construction System. The objectives of the BTO-funded project are to: 1) Achieve energy performance 50% better than the 2018 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC). 2) Achieve this level of energy performance at no additional cost VEIC worked with Louisiana State University (LSU), National Renewal Energy Lab (NREL), [the project team], and industry partners at the Mod Coach, KBS, and Solar Home Factory to identify and analyze multifamily business designs and modular construction practices. These designs and processes hold the promise of achieving the goals set out by the DOE.
With increasing deployment of Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), Building Automation System (BAS) controls, Internet of Things (IoT) network devices, and data-driven evaluation, measurement, and verification studies, the building sector is currently generating a staggering amount of energy-related data. In the right hands, these data sets can contribute to increased comfort and energy savings for building occupants and a more reliable electrical grid; however, due to a combination of factors, including significant privacy concerns, much of the data that are presently generated and stored are not used outside of basic operational applications. In the past year, our team has dedicated over 2,000 person-hours to accessing building energy data for a project funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Building Technologies Office. We sought whole-building or end-use (e.g., lighting) timeseries data at the individual-building or equipment level where possible or aggregated information, such as timeseries averages and quartiles by building type (e.g., office, retail, hospital), where sharing individual building information was not an option. We are additionally working with IoT and BAS data sets to derive information important to the project. We have assembled an extensive data set that will enable the development of publicly available end-use load profiles to benefit the U.S. building and electricity industries. Here we present an overview of the data set that we have assembled to date, the motivators and approaches that got us here, and the lessons we learned through our efforts. We also discuss work underway that presents additional options for future data access.