| 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.
- Presentations
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.

2004

Wetter, Michael, and Elijah Polak."A convergent optimization method using pattern search algorithms with adaptive precision simulation."Building Services Engineering Research and Technology 25.4 (2004) 327-338. DOI

Bhattacharya, Prajesh, P Vijayan, T Tang, S Nara, Patrick E Phelan, Ravi S Prasher, J Wang, and David W Song."Evaluation of the Temperature Oscillation Technique to Calculate Thermal Conductivity of Water and Systematic Measurement of the Thermal Conductivity of Aluminum Oxide – Water Nanofluiids."International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition, (2004).

Kohler, Christian, Howdy Goudey, and Dariush K Arasteh."A First-Generation Prototype Dynamic Residential Window." (2004) 11.

Wang, Liping, and Angui Li."A numerical study of vertical solar chimney for Enhancing stack ventilation in buildings."The 21st International Conference on Passive and Low Energy Architecture, The Netherlands (2004).

Wetter, Michael, and Elijah Polak."Building Design Optimization Using a Convergent Pattern Search Algorithm with Adaptive Precision Simulations."Energy and Buildings 37 (2004) 603-612.

Golove, William H, Richard E Brown, and Edward Holt."Guide to Purchasing Green Power: Renewable Electricity, Renewable Energy Certificates and On-Site Renewable Generation." (2004).

Griffith, Brent T, and Peter G Ellis."Photovoltaic and Solar Thermal Modeling with the EnergyPlus Calculation Engine."World Renewable Energy Congress VIII and Expo (2004).

Bazjanac, Vladimir."Virtual Building Environments - Applying Information Modeling to Buildings."European Conference on Product and Process Modeling in the Building and Construction Industry (ECPPM) 2004 (2004).

Wetter, Michael, and Jonathan A Wright."A comparison of deterministic and probabilistic optimization algorithms for nonsmooth simulation-based optimization ."Building and Environment 39.8 (2004) 989-999. DOI

O'Donnell, James, Elmer Morrissey, Marcus Keane, and Vladimir Bazjanac."BuildingPI: A Future Tool for Building Life Cycle Analysis."SimBuild 2004 1st International Conference of IBPSA-USA (2004).

Chantrasrisalai, Chanvit, and Daniel E Fisher."Comparative Analysis of One-Dimensional Slat-Type Blind Models."SimBuild 2004, Building Sustainability and Performance Through Simulation (2004).

Akbari, Hashem, Paul H Berdahl, Ronnen M Levinson, Stephen Wiel, Andre Desjarlais, William A Miller, Nancy Jenkins, Arthur H Rosenfeld, and Chris Scruton."Cool colored roofs to save energy and improve air quality."ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings, August 22-27, 2004 1 (2004) 1-16.

Huang, Yu Joe, Robin Mitchell, Stephen E Selkowitz, Dariush K Arasteh, and Robert D Clear."Development of Trade-Off Equations for EnergyStar Windows."SimBuild 2004 (2004).

Huang, Yu Joe, Robin Mitchell, and Stephen E Selkowitz."Development of Trade-Off Equations for EnergyStar Windows."SimBuild 2004, Building Sustainability and Performance Through Simulation (2004).

Crawley, Drury B, Linda K Lawrie, Curtis O Pedersen, Frederick C Winkelmann, Michael J Witte, Richard K Strand, Richard J Liesen, Walter F Buhl, Yu Joe Huang, Robert H Henninger, Jason Glazer, Daniel E Fisher, Don B Shirley, Brent T Griffith, Peter G Ellis, and Lixing Gu."EnergyPlus: An Update."SimBuild 2004, Building Sustainability and Performance Through Simulation (2004).

Witte, Michael J, Robert H Henninger, and Drury B Crawley."Experience Testing EnergyPlus With the ASHRAE 1052-RP Building Fabric Analytical Tests."SimBuild 2004, Building Sustainability and Performance Through Simulation (2004).

Linden, Paul F."Flow in an Underfloor Plenum."SimBuild 2004, Building Sustainability and Performance Through Simulation (2004).

Bazjanac, Vladimir, and Tobias Maile."IFC HVAC interface to EnergyPlus - A case of expanded interoperability for energy simulation."SimBuild 2004 (2004).

Bazjanac, Vladimir, and Tobias Maile."IFC HVAC Interface to EnergyPlus: A Case of Expanded Interoperability for Energy Simulation."SimBuild 2004, Building Sustainability and Performance Through Simulation (2004).

Chillar, Rahul, and Richard J Liesen."Improvement of the ASHRAE Secondary HVAC Toolkit Simple Cooling Coil Model for Simulation."SimBuild 2004, Building Sustainability and Performance Through Simulation (2004).

Lee, Eleanor S, Stephen E Selkowitz, Glenn D Hughes, and David A Thurm."Market Transformation Opportunities for Emerging Dynamic Facade and Dimmable Lighting Control Systems."2004 ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings (2004).

Long, Nicholas."Near Real-Time Weather Data Archive."SimBuild 2004, Building Sustainability and Performance Through Simulation (2004).

Xu, Peng, Philip Haves, Mary Ann Piette, and James E Braun."Peak Demand Reduction from Pre-Cooling with Zone Temperature Reset in an Office Building."2004 ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings (2004).

Strand, Richard K, Richard J Liesen, and Michael J Witte."Resources for Teaching Building Energy Simulation."SimBuild 2004, Building Sustainability and Performance Through Simulation (2004).

Ellis, Peter G, Richard K Strand, and Kurt T Baumgartner."Simulation of Tubular Daylighting Devices and Daylighting Shelves in EnergyPlus."SimBuild 2004, Building Sustainability and Performance Through Simulation (2004).