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

2021

Granderson, Jessica, Mrinalini Sharma, Eliot Crowe, David A Jump, Samuel Fernandes, Samir Touzani, and Devan Johnson."Assessment of Model-Based Peak Electric Consumption Prediction for Commercial Buildings."Energy and Building 245 (2021). DOI

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).

Langevin, Jared, Chioke B Harris, Aven Satre-Meloy, Handi Chandra Putra, Andrew Speake, Elaina Present, Rajendra Adhikari, Eric Wilson, and Andrew Satchwell."U.S. Building Energy Efficiency and Flexibility as an Electric Grid Resource."SSRN Electronic Journal (2021). DOI

2020

Liu, Jingjing, and Norman Bourassa."Continuously Improving Energy and Water Management."ASHRAE Journal (2020). DOI

Nubbe, Valerie, Kyung Lee, Alejandro Valdez, Ed Barbour, and Jared Langevin."Grid-Interactive Efficient Building Technology Cost, Performance, and Lifetime Characteristics." (2020). DOI

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

Alstone, Peter, Richard E Brown, Marco Pritoni, David Blum, Kun Zhang, and Anand Prakash."Resilient buildings for fire-adapted landscapes: EE and flexible loads integrated with solar and storage microgrids."ACEEE Summer Study 2020 (2020).

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

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

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

Taylor, Margaret, K Sydny Fujita, Jingjing Zhang, Mustapha Harb, James Tamerius, Michelle Jones, and Sarah K Price."Explaining jurisdictional compliance with California’s top-down streamlined solar permitting law (AB 2188)." (2019). DOI

Taylor, Margaret."Understanding streamlined solar permitting practices: A primer." (2019). DOI

Aghajanzadeh, Arian, and Peter L Therkelsen."Agricultural demand response for decarbonizing the electricity grid."Journal of Cleaner Production 220 (2019) 827 - 835. DOI

Van Cutsem, Olivier, Maher Kayal, David Blum, and Marco Pritoni."Comparison of MPC Formulations for Building Control under Commercial Time-of-Use Tariffs."IEEE PowerTech Milan 2019 (2019).

Salzman, Madeline, Michael Specian, Jared Langevin, Harry Bergmann, and Aven Satre-Meloy."Grid-interactive, efficient buildings: expanding value streams through optimized control of flexible building technologies." (2019).

2018

Tarroja, Brian, Felicia Chiang, Amir AghaKouchak, Scott Samuelsen, Shuba V Raghavan, Max Wei, Kaiyu Sun, and Tianzhen Hong."Translating climate change and heating system electrification impacts on building energy use to future greenhouse gas emissions and electric grid capacity requirements in California."Applied Energy 225 (2018) 522 - 534. DOI

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

Aghajanzadeh, Arian, Marshall English, and Collin English."Opportunities for Electricity Demand Management in Irrigated Agriculture." (2018). DOI

2017

Nordman, Bruce, Aditya Khandekar, Michael Spears, and Mattia Pezzola."A Simulation of Local Power Distribution Control Strategies."2017 IEEE Second International Conference on DC Microgrids (ICDCM) (2017). DOI

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).