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

Nordman, Bruce, Margarita Kloss, Bijit Kundu, Nate Dewart, Anand Prakash, Laura Wong, Alanna Torres, Rachel Levine, Marco Pritoni, Jordan Shackelford, Heidi Werner, Rahul Athalye, Aditya Khandekar, Callie Clark, Chris Uraine, and Rebecca Aviles."Energy Reporting: Device Demonstration, Communication Protocols, and Codes and Standards." (2024).

2022

Paul, Lazlo, Anand Prakash, Kun Zhang, Marco Pritoni, and Richard E Brown."SolarPlus Optimizer: Integrated Control of Solar, Batteries, and Flexible Loads for Small Commercial Buildings."2022 ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings (2022).

2021

Bennani, Imane Lahmam, Anand Prakash, Marina Zafiris, Lazlo Paul, Carlos Duarte Roa, Paul Raftery, Marco Pritoni, and Gabe Fierro."Query relaxation for portable brick-based applications."BuildSys '21: The 8th ACM International Conference on Systems for Energy-Efficient Buildings, Cities, and Transportation (2021). DOI

2020

Chen, Bingqing, Jonathan Francis, Marco Pritoni, Soummya Kar, and Mario Bergés."COHORT: Coordination of Heterogeneous Thermostatically Controlled Loads for Demand Flexibility."BuildSys '20: The 7th ACM International Conference on Systems for Energy-Efficient Buildings, Cities, and TransportationProceedings of the 7th ACM International Conference on Systems for Energy-Efficient Buildings, Cities, and Transportation (2020). DOI

McIlvennie, Claire, Angela Sanguinetti, and Marco Pritoni."Of impacts, agents, and functions: An interdisciplinary meta-review of smart home energy management systems research."Energy Research & Social Science 68 (2020) 101555. DOI

2019

Meier, Alan K, Tsuyoshi Ueno, and Marco Pritoni."Using data from connected thermostats to track large power outages in the United States."Applied Energy 256 (2019) 113940. DOI

Meier, Alan K, Leo I Rainer, Abigail A Daken, Tsuyoshi Ueno, Marco Pritoni, and Dan Baldewicz."What can connected thermostats tell us about American heating and cooling habits?."ECEEE 2019 SUMMER STUDY (2019).

2018

Pritoni, Marco, Rebecca Ford, Beth Karlin, and Angela Sanguinetti."Home energy management (HEM) database: A list with coded attributes of 308 devices commercially available in the US."Data in Brief 16 (2018) 71 - 74. DOI

2017

Pritoni, Marco, Mary Ann Piette, and Bruce Nordman."Accessing Wi-Fi Data for Occupancy Sensing." (2017). DOI

2015

Pritoni, Marco, Alan K Meier, Cecilia Aragon, Daniel Perry, and Therese Peffer."Energy efficiency and the misuse of programmable thermostats: The effectiveness of crowdsourcing for understanding household behavior."Energy Research & Social Science 8 (2015). DOI

2012

Peffer, Therese, Daniel Perry, Marco Pritoni, Cecilia Aragon, and Alan K Meier."Facilitating energy savings with programmable thermostats: evaluation and guidelines for the thermostat user interface."Ergonomics 56.Issue 3: Ergonomics and Sustainability (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).

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

Meier, Alan K, Cecilia Aragon, Therese Peffer, Daniel Perry, and Marco Pritoni."Usability of Residential Thermostats: Preliminary Investigations."Building and Environment 46.10 (2011) 1891-1898. DOI

Perry, Daniel, Cecilia Aragon, Alan K Meier, Therese Peffer, and Marco Pritoni."Making Energy Savings Easier: Usability Metrics for Thermostats."Journal of Usability Studies 6.4 (2011) 226-244.

Meier, Alan K, Cecilia Aragon, Daniel Perry, Therese Peffer, Marco Pritoni, and Jessica Granderson."Measuring the Usability of Appliance Controls."Energy Efficiency in Domestic Appliances and Lighting Conference (2011).

Perry, Daniel, Cecilia Aragon, Alan K Meier, and Marco Pritoni."Developing standards for affordances on embedded devices: poster abstract."IConference ’11 (2011). DOI

Meier, Alan K, Therese Peffer, Marco Pritoni, Cecilia Aragon, and Daniel Perry."Facilitating energy savings through enhanced usability of thermostats."ECEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency (2011).