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

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

2023

Wetter, Michael, and Matthias Sulzer."A call to action for building energy system modelling in the age of decarbonization."Journal of Building Performance Simulation (2023) 1 - 11. DOI

Grahovac, Milica, Paul Ehrlich, Jianjun Hu, and Michael Wetter."Model-based data center cooling controls comparative co-design."Science and Technology for the Built Environment (2023). DOI

Maier, Laura, Christoph Nytsch-Geusen, Lucas Westermann, Kushagra Mathur, Michael Wetter, and Dirk Muller."Comparative Study and Validation of Photovoltaic Model Formulations for the IBPSA Modelica Library based on Rooftop Measurement Data." (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).

Maccarini, Alessandro, Michael Wetter, Davide Varesano, Martin Bloemendal, Alireza Afshari, and Angelo Zarrella."Low-order aquifer thermal energy storage model for geothermal system simulation."15th International Modelica Conference (2023).

Gautier, Antoine, Michael Wetter, Jianjun Hu, and Hubertus Tummescheit."HVAC and Control Templates for the Modelica Buildings Library."Proceedings of the 15th International Modelica Conference 2023, Aachen, October 9-11 204 (2023). DOI

Peffer, Therese, Gabe Fierro, Paul Raftery, Carlos Duarte Roa, Marco Pritoni, Michael Wetter, Anand Prakash, Lazlo Paul, and Erik Paulson."Skewering the silos: using Brick to enable portable analytics, modeling and controls in buildings."Center for the Built Environment (2023).

2022

Gautier, Antoine, Michael Wetter, and Matthias Sulzer."Resilient cooling through geothermal district energy system."Applied Energy 325 (2022) 119880. DOI

Hinkelman, Kathryn, Saranya Anbarasu, Michael Wetter, Antoine Gautier, and Wangda Zuo."A fast and accurate modeling approach for water and steam thermodynamics with practical applications in district heating system simulation."Energy 254 (2022) 124227. 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

Roth, Amir, Michael Wetter, Kyle Benne, Yan Chen, Gabriel Fierro, Marco Pritoni, Avijit Saha, and Draguna Vrabie."Towards Digital and Performance-Based Supervisory HVAC Control Delivery."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

Hinkelman, Kathryn, Jing Wang, Wangda Zuo, Antoine Gautier, Michael Wetter, Chengliang Fan, and Nicholas Long."Modelica-based modeling and simulation of district cooling systems: A case study."Applied Energy 311 (2022) 118654. DOI

Hinkelman, Kathryn, Saranya Anbarasu, Michael Wetter, Antoine Gautier, Baptiste Ravache, and Wangda Zuo."Towards Open-Source Modelica Models for Steam-Based District Heating Systems."2022 Open Source Modelling and Simulation of Energy Systems (OSMSES)2022 Open Source Modelling and Simulation of Energy Systems (OSMSES) (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

Wetter, Michael, Paul Ehrlich, Antoine Gautier, Milica Grahovac, Philip Haves, Jianjun Hu, Anand Prakash, Dave Robin, and Kun Zhang."OpenBuildingControl: Digitizing the control delivery from building energy modeling to specification, implementation and formal verification."Energy 238 (2022) 121501. 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

Wetter, Michael, Jianjun Hu, Anand Prakash, Paul Ehrlich, Gabe Fierro, Milica Grahovac, Marco Pritoni, Lisa Rivalin, and Dave Robin."Modelica-json: Transforming energy models to digitize the control delivery process."IBPSA Building Simulation Conference 2021 (2021).

Long, Nicholas, Antoine Gautier, Hagar Elarga, Amy Allen, Ted Summer, Lauren Klun, Nathan Moore, and Michael Wetter."Modeling district heating and cooling systems with URBANopt, GeoJSON to Modelica Translator, and the Modelica Buildings Library.."Building Simulation 2021 (2021).

Wetter, Michael, Kyle Benne, and Baptiste Ravache."Software Architecture and Implementation of Modelica Buildings Library Coupling for Spawn of EnergyPlus."Proceedings of the 14th Modelica Conference 2021, Linköping, Sweden, September 20-24, 2021 181 (2021). DOI

Hinkelman, Kathryn, Jing Wang, Wangda Zuo, Antoine Gautier, Michael Wetter, and Nicholas Long."A Case Study on Condenser Water Supply Temperature Optimization with a District Cooling Plant."14th International Modelica Conference (2021). DOI

Doughtry, Christine, Jianjun Hu, Patrick Dobson, Peter Nico, and Michael Wetter."Coupling subsurface and above-surface models for optimizing the design of borefields and district heating and cooling systems in the presence of varying water-table depth."46th Workshop on Geothermal Reservoir Engineering (2021).

Wetter, Michael, Paul Ehrlich, Antoine Gautier, Milica Grahovac, Philip Haves, Jianjun Hu, and Kun Zhang."Open Building Control." (2021).

Sulzer, Matthias, Sven Werner, Stefan Mennel, and Michael Wetter."Vocabulary for the fourth generation of district heating and cooling."Smart Energy 1 (2021) 100003. DOI