News

KQED Quest covered energy-efficient windows research at Berkeley Lab. EETD researchers Howdy Goudey and Stephen Selkowitz are quoted, along with Delia Milliorin of Berkeley Lab's Molecular Foundry. Read the story and listen to the audio report.... Read more

A recent Journal of Climate paper by Stanford's Mark Jacobson and John Ten Hoeve (2011) on urban heat islands and cool roofs is a useful contribution to the literature. However, their results regarding white roofs are preliminary and uncertain. Along with our own work at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, other published papers have addressed the broader benefits of white roofs. In our view,... Read more

Alex Doron, former science & technology editor of the Israeli daily newspaper Maariv, writes about the Heat Island Group's cool cars study for the Israeli energy newsletter EnergiaNews.com. Read the original Hebrew article here, or a Google translation into the language of your choice here.... Read more

The Energy Performance of Buildings group has a newly remodeled website. EPB works on problems associated with whole-building integration involving modeling, measurement, design and operation. Most of its tasks focus on the movement of air and associated penalties involving distribution of pollutants, energy and fresh air.... Read more

It's a grand challenge: develop clean, sustainable technologies that deliver a low-carbon energy future, and through innovation, create jobs, new markets, and exports, and increase America's energy security.Researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have made it their mission to develop low-carbon and energy-efficient technologies such as advanced materials and... Read more

Nearly all cars sold in California have air conditioners. Cars painted with reflective coatings stay cooler in the sun and are easier to air condition to a comfortable temperature, according to a recent study by researchers in Berkeley Lab's Environmental Energy Technologies Division."Solar reflective paints can decrease the ‘soak' temperature of the air in a car that has been parked in the sun.... Read more

Teaming up to fight against escalating energy costs, the Department of Defense, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), and Philips Corporation are demonstrating advanced energy-efficient lighting controls technologies in Fort Irwin, California."The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that these technologies work in typical applications and buildings at Fort Irwin, and to provide... Read more

NASA's Ames Research Center and the Department of Energy (DOE), at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, Calif. are collaborating on technologies and processes for what may be the "greenest," highest-performing building in the federal government. Originally developed for aerospace applications, NASA intelligent system software will be installed in the new building, called... Read more

Researchers, government agencies, and roofing manufacturers from around the world gathered in Berkeley last month (July 28-29, 2011) to discuss the latest research on cool roofs. These solar reflective materials reduce energy use, and help cool the planet by reflecting sunlight to outer space. Their use has begun to soar in markets around the world thanks to their economic and environmental... Read more

If you read the Doonesbury comic strip on Sunday, August 7, you might have seen Michael Doonesbury and Bernie discussing cool white roofs. Cool roofs are an energy-efficient technology developed here in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). The characters also mention in passing a global initiative to help cool the earth by... Read more

Real-time control and continuous high-quality building performance data are the keys to reducing building energy use during day-to-day operations, and to maintaining energy-driven services and occupant comfort. Next-generation highly energy-efficient buildings will be dynamically controlled and monitored.Energy information systems (EIS) are one type of commercially available system that provides... Read more

Christopher Payne, an EETD scientist, will give a live webcast on energy-efficient product procurement for the federal government on August 4, 2011 from 1:30 to 3 pm EDT for the Federal Energy Management Program. He is joined by Amanda Sahl of FEMP.Energy-Efficient Product Procurement outlines how to meet executive order and Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) requirements on purchasing... Read more

What: International Workshop on Advances in Cool Roof Research: Protocols, Standards & Policies for Accelerated AgingWhen: Thursday, July 28 - Friday, July 29Where: Doubletree Hotel at Berkeley Marina, Berkeley, CaliforniaThis two-day workshop is sponsored by the Heat Island Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Concordia University, and the US... Read more

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will present a live webcast titled Labs, Data Centers, and High-Tech Facilities on July 7, 2011, from 1:30 to 3:00 pm EDT.Experts Dale Sartor and Paul Mathew of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Will Lintner of DOE's Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP), will present best practices to meet Federal mandates to improve the energy performance of... Read more

Ongoing research at national laboratories and in the lighting industry is focusing on improving the light output, lifetime, and durability of LEDs, as well as driving their costs down. Many lighting experts expect that LEDs will eventually be used widely in general lighting applications, replacing inefficient incandescent bulbs, as well as energy-efficient fluorescent lamps (both the linear and... Read more

Berkeley Lab Researcher Played Significant Role In Its DevelopmentJune 15, 2011—A significant new standard to help organizations save energy, "ISO 50001 Energy management systems- Requirements with guidance for use," was released today by the International Organization for Standardization.ISO 50001 can be used by any organization to manage its energy use. Targeting broad applicability across... Read more

Washington, DC — The U.S. Department of Energy today announced that Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) have joined with Dow Chemical Company as part of a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement to fund key research that will help develop the next generation of cool roof technologies in the U.S. The agreement will support research to... Read more

Two speakers at this free, open-to-the-public class at the Pacific Energy Center of PG&E in San Francisco are scientists at the Environmental Energy Technologies Division of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.Information Visualization in Commercial Buildings: Design, Technology, and Human Behavior April 13 (Wednesday, 9:00 am to 4:30 pm), San Francisco, Pacific Energy CenterJessica... Read more

That fancy programmable thermostat on your living room wall, the one with a backlit digital screen, several tiny buttons, and unintelligible instruction manual, may be making it more difficult to save energy.A research team at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) is beginning to figure out why. They are determining how to measure the usability of a thermostat—that is, the... Read more

Not long ago, Japan faced a major power crisis. In September 2002, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) was forced to shut down 17 nuclear power plants for emergency safety inspections.The winter of 2002-2003 was approaching, and the plants, which were expected to remain closed for months, would be unavailable through summer 2003, a time when demand from summertime air conditioning would... Read more

The Demand Response Research Center recently posted several one-page PDFs about its recent work. Following is one of these on the OpenADR specification and job creation.Open Automated Demand Response (OpenADR) is an information exchange model that facilitates reliable and cost-effective automation of both electricity price and system grid reliability signals to support demand response (DR).... Read more

Consulting firm RoseRyan has published a list of the top 25 movers and shakers in cleantech (2010), as well as a list of 15 people to watch in 2011.Mary Ann Piette, Deputy Leader of the Building Technologies Department was recognized as one of the 25. Piette is also the research director of the Demand Response Research Center, which is funded by the California Energy Commission's Public Interest... Read more

The OpenADR Alliance, a nonprofit corporation created to foster the development, adoption and compliance of a Smart Grid standard known as Open Automated Demand Response (OpenADR) held its first members' meeting at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), January 20-21.Automated demand response is a set of pre-programmed steps in a building or other facility, which automatically... Read more

Cool-colored roofing materials, developed by researchers at the Environmental Energy Technologies Division, are showcased at a new outdoor display of green technologies just opened in the city of San José just across the street from City Hall.The San José Green Vision Green Energy Showcase kicked off on Wednesday with a ceremony attended by San José Mayor Chuck Reed, Vipin Gupta, a Technical... Read more

The following is from the U.S. Department of Energy. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, through its Environmental Energy Technologies Divisionis one of the three DOE National Laboratories participating in this effort:U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has announced that 24 projects are receiving a total of $21 million in technical assistance to dramatically reduce the energy used in their... Read more