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.

Publications

Publications By Research Area

2024

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

Liu, Jingjing, Lili Yu, Rongxin Yin, Mary Ann Piette, Marco Pritoni, Armando Casillas, and Peter Schwartz."Factors Influencing Building Demand Flexibility." (2023). DOI

2022

Liu, Jingjing, Rongxin Yin, Lili Yu, Mary Ann Piette, Marco Pritoni, Armando Casillas, Jiarong Xie, Tianzhen Hong, Monica Neukomm, and Peter Schwartz."Defining and applying an electricity demand flexibility benchmarking metrics framework for grid-interactive efficient commercial buildings."Advances in Applied Energy 8 (2022) 100107. DOI

Liu, Jingjing, Lili Yu, Rongxin Yin, Mary Ann Piette, Marco Pritoni, Armando Casillas, Monica Neukomm, and Amir Roth."Benchmarking Demand Flexibility in Commercial Buildings and Flattening the Duck – Addressing Baseline and Commissioning Challenges."2022 Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings (2022). DOI

Prakash, Anand, Marco Pritoni, Margarita Kloss, Mary Ann Piette, Michel Kamel, and Dotty Hage."Cloud-Control of Legacy Building Automation System: A case study."2022 Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings (2022). DOI

Nordman, Bruce, Marco Pritoni, Mary Ann Piette, and Anand Prakash."Communication Requirements for Price-Based Grid Coordination."2022 Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings (2022). DOI

Gerke, Brian F, Sarah Josephine Smith, Samanvitha Murthy, Aditya Khandekar, Cong Zhang, Sunhee Baik, Shreya Agarwal, Jingjing Liu, Richard E Brown, Mary Ann Piette, and Peter Alstone."Overview of Phase 4 of the California Demand Response Potential Study." (2022).

Yu, Lili, Jingjing Liu, Rongxin Yin, Mary Ann Piette, Marco Pritoni, Armando Casillas, Monica Neukomm, and Amir Roth."When Do Efficiency and Demand Flexibility Go Hand-in-hand?."2022 Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings (2022). DOI

2021

Ahn, Hyeunguk, Jingjing Liu, Donghun Kim, Rongxin Yin, Tianzhen Hong, and Mary Ann Piette."How Can Floor Covering Influence Buildings’ Demand Flexibility?."Energies 14.12 (2021) 3658. DOI

Satchwell, Andrew, Mary Ann Piette, Aditya Khandekar, Jessica Granderson, Natalie Mims Frick, Ryan Hledik, Ahmad Faruqui, Long Lam, Stephanie Ross, Jesse Cohen, Kitty Wang, Daniela Urigwe, Dan Delurey, Monica Neukomm, and David Nemtzow."A National Roadmap for Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings." (2021).

2020

Liu, Jingjing, Rongxin Yin, Marco Pritoni, Mary Ann Piette, and Monica Neukomm."Developing and Evaluating Metrics for Demand Flexibility in Buildings: Comparing Simulations and Field Data."ACEEE Summer Study (2020). DOI

Gerke, Brian F, Giulia Gallo, Sarah Josephine Smith, Jingjing Liu, Shuba V Raghavan, Peter Schwartz, Mary Ann Piette, Rongxin Yin, and Sofia Stensson."The California Demand Response Potential Study, Phase 3: Final Report on the Shift Resource through 2030." (2020). DOI

2019

Piette, Mary Ann, Reshma Singh, and Anand Prakash."Evaluation of the Need for and Design of a City Energy Operations System."Proceedings of the 1st ACM International Workshop on Urban Building Energy Sensing, Controls, Big Data Analysis, and Visualization - UrbSys'19 (2019). DOI

2018

Gallo, Giulia, Brian F Gerke, Jingjing Liu, Mary Ann Piette, Peter Schwartz, and Peter Alstone."Mobilizing the Anti-Duck Brigade: Technology and Market Pathways for Load-Shifting Demand Response in California."2018 Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings (2018). DOI

2017

Alstone, Peter, Jennifer Potter, Mary Ann Piette, Peter Schwartz, Michael A Berger, Laurel N Dunn, Sarah Josephine Smith, Michael D Sohn, Arian Aghajanzadeh, Sofia Stensson, and Julia Szinai."Demand Response Potential for California SubLAPs and Local Capacity Planning Areas: An Addendum to the 2025 California Demand Response Potential Study - Phase 2." (2017).

2016

Alstone, Peter, Jennifer Potter, Mary Ann Piette, Peter Schwartz, Michael A Berger, Laurel N Dunn, Sarah Josephine Smith, Michael D Sohn, Arian Aghajanzadeh, Sofia Stensson, and Julia Szinai."2015 California Demand Response Potential Study - Charting California's Demand response Future: Interim Report on Phase 1 Results." (2016).

2014

Yin, Rongxin, Sila Kiliccote, and Mary Ann Piette."Linking measurements and models in commercial buildings: A case study for model calibration and demand response strategy evaluation." (2014).

2013

Piette, Mary Ann, Richard E Brown, Phillip N Price, Janie Page, Jessica Granderson, David Riess, Stephen Czarnecki, Girish Ghatikar, and Steven Lanzisera."Automated Measurement and Signaling Systems for the Transactional Network." (2013).

2012

Piette, Mary Ann, Jessica Granderson, Michael Wetter, and Sila Kiliccote."Responsive and Intelligent Building Information and Control for Low-Energy and Optimized Grid Integration."ACEEE 2012 Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings, August 12-17, 2012 (2012).

Piette, Mary Ann, Jessica Granderson, Michael Wetter, and Sila Kiliccote."Intelligent Building Energy Information and Control Systems for Low-Energy Operations and Optimal Demand Response."IEEE Design and Test of Computers 29.4 (2012) 8-16. DOI

2009

Granderson, Jessica, Junqiao Han Dudley, Sila Kiliccote, and Mary Ann Piette."Chilled Water Storage System and Demand Response at the University of California at Merced."9th International Conference for Enhanced Building Operations, November 17-18, 2009 (2009).

2006

Kiliccote, Sila, Mary Ann Piette, David S Watson, and Glenn D Hughes."Dynamic Controls for Energy Efficiency and Demand Response: Framework Concepts and a New Construction Case Study in New York."2006 ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings (2006).

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).