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

Grant, Peter, Tzu-Ching Su, Luis L Fernandes, Jordan Shackelford, Anand Prakash, Stephen Czarnecki, Pei-Yu Yu, and Feng-Yi Lin."OpenFacadeControl: enabling integration of automated facades with other building systems." (2024). DOI

Zhao, Haoran, Iain S Walker, William W Delp, and Brett C Singer."Performance and usage of mechanical residential kitchen ventilation."ASHRAE Winter 2024 (2024).

Malik, Jeetika, Tianzhen Hong, Max Wei, and Sea Rotmann."Prioritize energy sufficiency to decarbonize our buildings."Nature Human Behaviour 8.3 (2024) 406-410. DOI

Fernandes, Luis L, and Cynthia Regnier."Zero Net Energy Retrofits for Small Commercial Offices: Zero Net Energy Package and Tubular Daylighting Device FLEXLAB Test Results Report." (2024).

2023

Munankarmi, Prateek, Eric Wilson, Janet L Reyna, Elaina Present, Stacey Rothgeb, and Aven Satre-Meloy."Modeled Results of Four Residential Energy Efficiency Measure Packages for Deriving Advanced Building Construction Research Targets." (2023). DOI

Queiroz, Natália, Luis L Fernandes, and Fernando OscarRutt Pereira."Comparison of Fast Daylighting Climate-Based Simulation Methods for Parametric Design: Two-Phase, Three-Phase Method and Path Tracing."Architectural Engineering and Design Management (2023) 1 - 19. DOI

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

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

Hasanbeigi, Ali, Cecilia Springer, Jibran Zuberi, Hongyou Lu, and Nan Zhou."Electrifying Industrial Heating in China." (2023).

Crowe, Eliot, Yimin Chen, Hayden Reeve, David Yuill, Amir Ebrahimifakhar, Yuxuan Chen, Lucas Troup, Amanda Smith, and Jessica Granderson."Empirical Analysis of the Prevalence of HVAC Faults in Commercial Buildings." (2023). DOI

Shackelford, Jordan, Alastair Robinson, Cynthia Regnier, and Sang Hoon Lee."Getting Beyond Widgets: Performance of Efficient Indoor Air Quality System Retrofit Packages for Schools." (2023). 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

Wan, Shanshan, Mengnan Zhao, Yimin Chen, Shuyue Yang, Dongwei Qiu, and James Lo."A novel data-driven relationship inference approach for automatic data tagging in building heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems."Building and Environment Vol. No..246 (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).

de Mesquita, P. Jacob Bueno, Nuria Casquero-Modrego, Iain S Walker, Brennan Less, and Brett C Singer."Quantifying the Potential Health Impacts of Unvented Combustion in Homes – A Meta-Analysis."43rd AIVC-11th TightVent & 9th Venticool Conference, 4-5 October 2023, Copenhagen (2023).

Hong, Tianzhen, Jeetika Malik, Amanda Krelling, William O'Brien, Kaiyu Sun, Roberto Lamberts, and Max Wei."Ten questions concerning thermal resilience of buildings and occupants for climate adaptation."Building and Environment 244 (2023) 110806. DOI

Ham, Sang woo, Donghun Kim, Tanya Barham, and Kent Ramseyer."The first field application of a low-cost MPC for grid-interactive K-12 schools: Lessons-learned and savings assessment."Energy and Buildings 296 (2023) 113351. DOI

Gehbauer, Christoph, Douglas R Black, and Peter Grant."Advanced control strategies to manage electric vehicle drivetrain battery health for Vehicle-to-X applications."Applied Energy 345 (2023) 121296. DOI

Yin, Rongxin, Jingjing Liu, Mary Ann Piette, Jiarong Xie, Marco Pritoni, Armando Casillas, Lili Yu, and Peter Schwartz."Comparing simulated demand flexibility against actual performance in commercial office buildings."Building and Environment 243 (2023) 110663. DOI

Brown, Richard E, Aditya Khandekar, Jingjing Liu, Bruce Nordman, Jaime Kolln, Steve Widergren, David Narang, Ted Bohn, and Yaosuo Xue."Energy Services Interface: Requirements Document." (2023). DOI

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

Karki, Unique, and Prakash Rao."Techno-economic analysis of the water, energy, and greenhouse gas emissions impacts from the adoption of water efficiency practices in the U.S. manufacturing sector."Resources, Conservation and Recycling 196 (2023) 107054. DOI