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.

Publications

Publications By Research Area

2024

Benne, Kyle, Jermy Thomas, Jiazhen Ling, David Blum, and Amir Roth."Simulation-Driven Rating of Smart Thermostats."Eleventh National Conference of IBPSA-USA SimBuild 2024 (2024). DOI

Fu, Hongxiang, Ettore Zanetti, Jianjun Hu, David Blum, and Michael Wetter."A Modelica Implementation of an Organic Rankine Cycle." 207 (2024) 127-135. DOI

Zanetti, Ettore, David Blum, Marco Pritoni, and Mary Ann Piette."Field Performance of Commercial Building Load Flexibility Using Model Predictive Control."8th International High Performance Buildings Conference at Purdue (2024). DOI

2023

Zanetti, Ettore, David Blum, and Michael Wetter."Control development and sizing analysis for a 5th generation district heating and cooling network using Modelica."15th International Modelica Conference (2023).

Arroyo, Javier, Lucas Verleyen, Lucas Bex, Louis Hermans, Muhammad Hafeez Saeed, Yucun Lu, Joris Depoortere, Attila Bálint, Erik Delarue, Johan Driesen, Geert Deconinck, David Blum, and Lieve Helsen."Prototyping the DOPTEST Framework for Simulation-Based Testing of System Integration Strategies in Districts."Building Simulation 2023: 18th Conference of IBPSA 18 (2023). DOI

2022

Zanetti, Ettore, Donghun Kim, David Blum, Rossano Scroccia, and Marcello Aprile."Performance comparison of quadratic, nonlinear, and mixed integer nonlinear MPC formulations and solvers on an air source heat pump hydronic floor heating system."Journal of Building Performance Simulation (2022) 1 - 19. DOI

Kim, Donghun, Zhe Wang, James Brugger, David Blum, Michael Wetter, Tianzhen Hong, and Mary Ann Piette."Site demonstration and performance evaluation of MPC for a large chiller plant with TES for renewable energy integration and grid decarbonization."Applied Energy 321 (2022) 119343. DOI

Helmns, Dre, Armando Casillas, Anand Prakash, David Blum, Marco Pritoni, Spencer M Dutton, Jonathan Woolley, and Subhrajit Chakraborty."Heat Pumps with Phase Change Thermal Storage: Flexible, Efficient, and Electrification Friendly."2022 Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings (2022). DOI

Blum, David, Zhe Wang, Chris Weyandt, Donghun Kim, Michael Wetter, Tianzhen Hong, and Mary Ann Piette."Field demonstration and implementation analysis of model predictive control in an office HVAC system."Applied Energy 318 (2022) 119104. DOI

Luo, Na, Zhe Wang, David Blum, Christopher Weyandt, Norman Bourassa, Mary Ann Piette, and Tianzhen Hong."A three-year dataset supporting research on building energy management and occupancy analytics."Nature Scientific Data (2022). DOI

Zhang, Kun, David Blum, Hwakong Cheng, Gwelen Paliaga, Michael Wetter, and Jessica Granderson."Estimating ASHRAE Guideline 36 energy savings for multi-zone variable air volume systems using Spawn of EnergyPlus."Journal of Building Performance Simulation 15.2 (2022) 215 - 236. DOI

2021

Blum, David, Javier Arroyo, Sen Huang, Ján Drgoňa, Filip Jorissen, Harald Taxt Walnum, Yan Chen, Kyle Benne, Draguna Vrabie, Michael Wetter, and Lieve Helsen."Building optimization testing framework (BOPTEST) for simulation-based benchmarking of control strategies in buildings."Journal of Building Performance Simulation 14.5 (2021) 586 - 610. DOI

Helmns, Dre, David Blum, Armando Casillas, Anand Prakash, Jonathan Woolley, David Vernon, Caton Mande, Michael Woodcox, and Spencer M Dutton."Towards a Techno-Economic Analysis of PCM-Integrated Hybrid HVAC Systems."6th International High Performance Buildings Conference at Purdue (2021).

Helmns, Dre, David Blum, Spencer M Dutton, and Van P Carey."Development and Validation of a Latent Thermal Energy Storage Model Using Modelica."Energies 14.1 (2021) 194. DOI

2020

Drgoňa, Ján, Javier Arroyo, Iago Cupeiro Figueroa, David Blum, Krzysztof Arendt, Donghun Kim, Enric Perarnau Ollé, Juraj Oravec, Michael Wetter, Draguna L Vrabie, and Lieve Helsen."All you need to know about model predictive control for buildings."Annual Reviews in Control (2020). DOI

Zhang, Kun, David Blum, Milica Grahovac, Jianjun Hu, Jessica Granderson, and Michael Wetter."Development and Verification of Control Sequences for Single- Zone Variable Air Volume System Based on ASHRAE Guideline 36."American Modelica Conference 2020 (2020). DOI

Pritoni, Marco, Anand Prakash, David Blum, Kun Zhang, Rui Tang, and Jessica Granderson."Advanced control sequences and FDD technology. Just shiny objects, or ready for scale?."ACEEE Summer Study 2020 (2020). DOI

Prakash, Anand, Kun Zhang, Pranav Gupta, David Blum, Marc Marshall, Gabe Fierro, Peter Alstone, James Zoellic, Richard E Brown, and Marco Pritoni."Solar+ Optimizer: A Model Predictive Control Optimization Platform for Grid Responsive Building Microgrids."Energies 13.12 (2020) 3093. DOI

Gehbauer, Christoph, David Blum, Taoning Wang, and Eleanor S Lee."An assessment of the load modifying potential of model predictive controlled dynamic facades within the California context."Energy and Buildings 210 (2020) 109762. DOI

Gehbauer, Christoph, David Blum, Taoning Wang, and Eleanor S Lee."Integrated Dynamic Facade Control with an Agent-based Architecture for Commercial Buildings." (2020).

2019

Blum, David, K Arendt, Lisa Rivalin, Mary Ann Piette, Michael Wetter, and C.T Veje."Practical factors of envelope model setup and their effects on the performance of model predictive control for building heating, ventilating, and air conditioning systems."Applied Energy 236 (2019) 410 - 425. DOI

Blum, David, Filip Jorissen, Sen Huang, Yan Chen, Javier Arroyo, Kyle Benne, Yanfei Li, Valentin Gavan, Lisa Rivalin, Lieve Helsen, Draguna Vrabie, Michael Wetter, and Marina Sofos."Prototyping the BOPTEST Framework for Simulation-Based Testing of Advanced Control Strategies in Buildings."IBPSA Building Simulation 2019 (2019).

2018

Blum, David, Guanjing Lin, Michael Spears, Janie Page, and Jessica Granderson."When Data Analytics Meet Site Operation: Benefits and Challenges."2018 ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings (2018).

2017

Granderson, Jessica, Guanjing Lin, David Blum, Shankar Earni, Janie Page, and Mary Ann Piette."Optimizing Operational Efficiency: Integrating Energy Information Systems and Model-Based Diagnostics." (2017). DOI

Blum, David, and Michael Wetter."MPCPy: An Open-Source Software Platform for Model Predictive Control in Buildings."Proceedings of the 15th IBPSA Conference: Building Simulation 2017 (2017).