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Commercial building retrofits present a prime opportunity to improve building energy efficiency, and numerous industry and policy stakeholders are increasingly pushing for these retrofits to happen. However, a recent study by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) found that most commercial building retrofits are actually simple upgrades of... Read more

A grant of nearly $2 million was recently awarded to install energy-saving, thin-glass triple-pane windows in low-income communities in California. Thanks to years of investment and support from the California Energy Commission (CEC) and the Department of Energy (DOE), this project will work with industry partners to deploy superior windows in California homes. Windows are often referred to as the... Read more

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Technology Commercialization Fund has awarded $1 million to four projects from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley Lab) to further collaborative research with industry partners on biofuels, bioproducts, energy microgrid technology, and renewable energy technology.Two of those projects are from Berkeley Lab’s Energy Technologies Area: Expand Access to... Read more

FLEXLAB®, the world’s most advanced building simulator and testbed, will be used to simulate office and school heating, ventilation, and air conditioning configurations. (Credit: Berkeley Lab)As society prepares to reopen indoor spaces and ease back into some sense of normalcy during the COVID-19 pandemic, a team of researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National... Read more

The volume of data researchers can collect on how buildings use energy has changed dramatically in recent years, and that is transforming approaches to energy efficiency. Mary Ann Piette, director of the Building Technology and Urban Systems division at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley Lab), discusses this shift and other trends in building energy efficiency... Read more

Smart windows that track the position of the sun and automatically dim to block out glare and heat sound futuristic, but many architects and engineers are already starting to integrate them into the design of new homes and commercial buildings. San Francisco International Airport, for example, is installing one of the largest dynamic window installations in an airport in the world. Researchers... Read more

Extreme weather events – such as severe drought, storms, and heat waves – have been forecast to become more commonplace and are already starting to occur. What has been less studied is the impact on energy systems and how communities can avoid costly disruptions, such as partial or total blackouts. Now an international team of scientists has published a new study proposing an optimization... Read more

Data centers are the backbone supporting the world’s ever-increasing need for internet access, data storage, and networking. Demand for data center services has risen sharply over past decades, and data-intensive technologies promise to increase demand further. New research by a team including Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's (Berkeley Lab's) Arman Shehabi and Sarah Smith shows that... Read more

The Retro-Commissioning Sensor Suitcase, an innovative technological solution developed through a Department of Energy (DOE) national lab-industry partnership to improve a building’s operating costs, comfort and energy performance, was recently honored with the 2020 Federal Laboratory Consortium Award for Excellence in Technology Transfer. Over the last several years, Lawrence Berkeley National... Read more

The 2019 fiscal year has been one of the busiest yet for FLEXLAB, an advanced integrated building and grid technologies testbed at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).The facility recently marked its fifth anniversary and has supported a wide range of projects, from testing emerging technologies to developing and validating new strategies to integrate... Read more

Following an international search, Robert Kostecki has been appointed director of the Energy Storage and Distributed Resources (ESDR) Division in the Energy Technologies Area (ETA) at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).Kostecki has extensive leadership experience and is a renowned scientist known for his pioneering research in electrochemical systems... Read more

Cutting-edge technologies from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) to detect radiation, make buildings more energy efficient, and accelerate neuroscience research were honored with R&D 100 Awards by R&D World magazine.Also recognized was Spack: A Package Manager for HPC Systems, a project led by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and which includes the National Energy... Read more

A recent CNBC video story on ocean desalination technologies, one of several options being explored to address world water shortages, featured Prakash Rao of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley Lab). Rao, a research scientist within the Lab's Energy Technologies Area, conducts analysis of large-scale desalination, focusing on its energy implications. He has co-authored research, for example,... Read more

Six researchers in the Energy Technologies Area have been recognized in the annual Director's Awards, which applauds outstanding scientific contributions at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).Tom McKone received the Berkeley Lab Prize, a lifetime achievement award; Nihar Shah, a research scientist/engineer, received a societal impact award; and the... Read more

The National Alliance for Water Innovation, which is led by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), has been awarded a five-year, $100-million Energy-Water Desalination Hub by DOE (pending appropriations) to address water security issues in the United States. The Hub will focus on early-stage research and development for energy-efficient and... Read more

When Hannah Moring was growing up she loved tinkering around with her Dad in his woodworking shop, and learning how things worked and were put together, a fascination that flourished throughout high school, where she excelled in math and science.Today that experience has led her to a prestigious internship this summer at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). Moring is one of nine... Read more

In summer 2014, FLEXLAB® opened for business as the world’s most advanced integrated building and grid technologies testbed, helping a range of organizations—including companies, utilities and government agencies—evaluate technologies for maximum energy efficiency.Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab’s) pioneering history of energy efficiency research meets real-world... Read more

Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) recently collaborated on the development of a new kind of roof shingle that will help reduce air pollution.The shingles’ photocatalytic granules, developed by 3M, were evaluated at Berkeley Lab during a three-year testing period to determine effectiveness and performance. The innovative methodology researchers developed during... Read more

Last week Ronnen Levinson, leader of the Berkeley Lab Heat Island Group, was featured on NPR's Science Friday broadcast. He was invited to join the program to discuss cool surfaces and other city-cooling strategies on the segment "Hot Enough For You? Cooling The Worsening Urban Heat Island". Other speakers included former Heat Island Group scientist George Ban-Weiss (University of Southern... Read more

Two researchers are working at the forefront of water-energy technologies as 2018 Rosenfeld Postdoctoral Fellows at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).Akanksha Menon and Arkadeep Kumar joined Berkeley Lab's Energy Technologies Area last year for two-year terms as part of the fellowship, which is awarded to outstanding recent Ph.D. recipients. Both are doing work that honors... Read more

A group of industry leaders learned the latest techniques and technologies to save energy and water at a recent two-day event hosted by the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Better Buildings, Better Plants program.The event was held at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).Through the Better Plants program, DOE works with industrial partners... Read more

A leading energy efficiency group recently highlighted research from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley Lab) as part of a blog post about new in-store labels for window coverings. The labels for attachments such as blinds and shades are informed by a product rating and certification program developed via extensive modeling and research at Berkeley Lab. The text from the American Council for... Read more

A select audience recently gathered for the 2019 Art Rosenfeld Symposium on Energy Efficient and Grid Interactive Buildings. The day was dedicated to the ongoing scientific discoveries and research inspired by Rosenfeld, a Berkeley Lab Senior Scientist, UC Berkeley Professor and former Commissioner of the California Energy Commission.Berkeley Lab Director Mike Witherell greeted the audience with a... Read more

An innovative researcher has been accepted into a prestigious program designed to advance collaboration about water management in California, by engaging stakeholders and bridging differences.Arian Aghajanzadeh, an engineer in the Energy Technologies Area (ETA) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), will participate in the Water Solutions Network's second learning cohort of... Read more

Water-purifying technology developed at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley Lab) was named among only five in the world that meet current international standards in a recent study from United Nations University examining systems for small communities.The Lab's Electro Chemical Arsenic Remediation (ECAR) removes arsenic from drinking water effectively while remaining affordable—a rare... Read more