| Building Technology and Urban Systems

About Us +
Researchers in the Building Technology & Urban Systems Division (BTUS) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory develop data and technologies that increase energy efficiency and improve the health, safety and comfort of building occupants, in the United States and worldwide.

We work closely with industry partners, academics and government officials to achieve these goals, and share our research widely
Research +
We are at the forefront of cutting-edge research that redefines building technology and explores all areas of urban systems.

We have been leaders for decades in developing energy-efficient windows, improving indoor air quality, coming up with new ideas to fix the nation's electricity grid, and so much more.

Visit our research areas at the right to find out more.
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Publications +
Enjoy presentations from Building Technology & Urban systems research experts on a wide variety of topics in the areas of building energy efficiency, the electricity grid and how it relates to buildings and much more.
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News
Tools & Guides +
Explore our tools, guidebooks and software and download for free.

We offer a variety of technologies designed to simulate and model real-world circumstances to assist in energy-saving programs and help building owners build better buildings. These tools can help calculate performance of building systems like windows and shades, help consumers and builders pick the best windows for a variety of applications and much more.

2012

Anders, André, Jiří Čapek, Matêj Hála, and Ludvik Martinu."The ‘recycling trap’: a generalized explanation of discharge runaway in high-power impulse magnetron sputtering."Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics 45.1 (2012) 012003. DOI

Zhu, Dandan, Tianzhen Hong, Da Yan, and Chuang Wang."Comparative research in building energy modeling programs."China Annual HVACR Conference (2012).

Sims, Michelle, and Alan K Meier."An Examination of the Recertification Processes of Building Certification Systems."2012 ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings (2012).

Appelfeld, David, Andrew McNeil, and Svend Svendsen."An Hourly-Based Performance Comparison of an Integrated Micro-Structural Perforated Shading Screen with Standard Shading Systems."Energy and Buildings 50.July 2012 (2012). DOI

Pritoni, Marco, Therese Peffer, Jessica Granderson, Margarita Kloss, Alan K Meier, and Cecilia Aragon."Folk Labeling: Insights on Improving Usability and Saving Energy Gleaned from After-Market Graffiti on Common Appliances."2012 ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings (2012).

Maddalena, Randy L, Melissa M Lunden, Daniel L Wilson, Cristina Ceballos, Thomas W Kirchstetter, Jonathan L Slack, and Larry L Dale."Quantifying Stove Emissions Related to Different Use Patterns for the Silver‐mini (Small Turkish) Space Heating Stove." (2012).

Zuo, Wangda, Mingang Jin, and Qingyan Chen."Reduction of numerical viscosity in FFD model."Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics 6.2 (2012) 234-247.

Wang, Liping, Philip Haves, and John Breshears."The Energy Saving Potential of Membrane-Based Enthalpy Recovery in Vav Systems for Commercial Office Buildings."SimBuild 2012 IBPSA Conference (2012).

Jin, Mingang, Wangda Zuo, and Qingyan Chen."Validation of three dimensional fast fluid dynamics for indoor airflow simulations."the 2nd International Conference on Building Energy and Environment (COBEE2012) (2012) 1055-1062.

2011

Wenzel, Thomas P."An Analysis of the Relationship between Casualty Risk Per Crash and Vehicle Mass and Footprint for Model Year 2000-2007 Light-Duty Vehicles - Preliminary Report." (2011).

Wetter, Michael."GenOpt Generic Optimization Program, User Manual, Version 3.1.0." (2011).

Peffer, Therese, Marco Pritoni, Alan K Meier, Cecilia Aragon, and Daniel Perry."How people use thermostats in homes: A review."Building and Environment 46.12 (2011). DOI

Levinson, Ronnen M, Heng Pan, George A Ban-Weiss, Pablo J Rosado, Riccardo Paolini, and Hashem Akbari."Potential benefits of solar reflective car shells: Cooler cabins, fuel savings and emission reductions."Applied Energy 88.12 (2011) 4343-4357. DOI

Anders, André, and Jeff Brown."A Plasma Lens for Magnetron Sputtering."IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science 39.11 (2011) 2528 - 2529. DOI

Maile, Tobias, Vladimir Bazjanac, James O'Donnell, and Matthew Garr."A software tool to compare measured and simulated building energy performance data."IBPSA Building Simulation 2011 (2011).

Zuo, Wangda, Andrew McNeil, Michael Wetter, and Eleanor S Lee."Acceleration of Radiance for Lighting Simulation by using Parallel Computing with OpenCL."12th International Conference of the International Building Performance Simulation Association (Building Simulation 2011) (2011) p. 110-117.

Bazjanac, Vladimir, Tobias Maile, Cody Rose, James O'Donnell, Natasa Mrazovic, Elmer Morrissey, and Benjamin Welle."An Assessment of the use of Building Energy Performance Simulation in Early Design."IBPSA Building Simulation 2011 (2011).

Nouidui, Thierry Stephane, Michael Wetter, Zhengwei Li, Xiufeng Pang, Prajesh Bhattacharya, and Philip Haves."BACnet and Analog/Digital Interfaces of the Building Controls Virtual Test Bed."Proceedings of the 12th IBPSA Conference (2011) p. 294-301.

Haves, Philip, Prajesh Bhattacharya, Thierry Stephane Nouidui, Michael Wetter, Zhengwei Li, and Xiufeng Pang."BacNet and Analog/Digital Interfaces of the Building Controls Virtual Testbed." (2011).

Wen, Yao-Jung, Dennis L DiBartolomeo, Francis M Rubinstein, and Antonio Ruzzelli."Co-simulation based building controls implementation with networked sensors and actuators."Third ACM Workshop on Embedded Sensing Systems for Energy-Efficiency in Buildings Proceedings of BuildSys 2011 (2011) 55. DOI

Menon, Surabi, and Ronnen M Levinson."Cool roofs and global cooling: a response to Jacobson & Ten Hoeve (2011)." (2011).

See, Richard, Philip Haves, Pramod Sreekanathan, Mangesh Basarkar, James O'Donnell, and Kevin Settlemyre."Development of a user interface for the EnergyPlus whole building energy simulation program."IBPSA Building Simulation 2011 (2011).

Basarkar, Mangesh, Philip Haves, Xiufeng Pang, Liping Wang, and Tianzhen Hong."Modeling and simulation of HVAC faults in EnergyPlus."Building Simulation 2011 (2011).

Basarkar, Mangesh, Xiufeng Pang, Liping Wang, and Tianzhen Hong."Modeling and simulation of HVAC Results in EnergyPlus." (2011).

Wetter, Michael, Wangda Zuo, and Thierry Stephane Nouidui."Modeling of Heat Transfer in Rooms in the Modelica "Buildings" Library."Proceedings of Building Simulation 2011 (2011) 1096-1103.