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

Newkirk, Alexander, Prakash Rao, and Paul Sheaffer."U.S. Industrial and Commercial Motor System Market Assessment Report Volume 2: Advanced Motors and Drives Supply Chain Review." (2021). DOI

McCall, James, Prakash Rao, Susana Garcia Gonzalez, Sachin Nimbalkar, Sujit Das, Sarang Supekar, and Joe Cresko."U.S. Manufacturing Water Use Data and Estimates: Current State, Limitations, and Future Needs for Supporting Manufacturing Research and Development."ACS ES&T Water (2021). DOI

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

Walker, Iain S., Brennan Less, David M. Lorenzetti, and Michael D. Sohn."Development of Advanced Smart Ventilation Controls for Residential Applications."Energies (2021). DOI

Li, , Han, Zhe Wang, Tianzhen Hong, and Mary Ann Piette."Energy flexibility of residential buildings: A systematic review of characterization and quantification methods and applications."Advances in Applied Energy 3 (2021) 100054. DOI

Perera, A.T.D., Kavan Javanroodi, Y. Wang, and Tianzhen Hong."Urban cells: Extending the energy hub concept to facilitate sector and spatial coupling."Advances in Applied Energy 3 (2021) 100046. DOI

Thomson, Gregory D., Robert G. Davis, Luis L. Fernandes, and Taoning Wang."Achieving Integrated Daylighting and Electric Lighting Systems: Current State of the Art and Needed Research."Energies 14.13 (2021) 3833. DOI

Mathew, Paul A., Lino Sanchez, Sang Hoon Lee, and Travis Walter."Assessing the Energy Resilience of Office Buildings: Development and Testing of a Simplified Metric for Real Estate Stakeholders."Building Vol.11(3) No.96 (2021). DOI

Hedman, Bruce, David Jones, and Vestal Tutterow."Beneficial CHP – Is that a Thing? Considering CHP in the Context of Beneficial Electrification."ACEEE Summer Study for Energy Efficiency in Industry (2021).

Tutterow, Vestal, and Ethan Rogers."Energy Management and Product Sustainability Standards – A Key Link to Sustainable Supply Chains."ACEEE Summer Study for Energy Efficiency in Industry (2021).

Touzani, Samir, and Jessica Granderson."Open Data and Deep Semantic Segmentation for Automated Extraction of Building Footprints."Remote Sensing Vol.13 No..2578 (2021). DOI

Hong, Tianzhen, Yujie Xu, Kaiyu Sun, Wanni Zhang, Xuan Luo, and Barry Hooper."Urban microclimate and its impact on building performance: A case study of San Francisco."Urban Climate 38 (2021) 100871. DOI

Li, Han, Zhe Wang, Tianzhen Hong, Andrew Parker, and Monica Neukomm."Characterizing patterns and variability of building electric load profiles in time and frequency domains."Applied Energy 291 (2021) 116721. DOI

Gerber, Daniel L., Fariborz Musavi, Omkar Ghatpande, Stephen M. Frank, Jason Poon, Richard E. Brown, and Wei Feng."A Comprehensive Loss Model and Comparison of AC and DC Boost Converters."Energies 14.11 (2021) 3131. 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

Wang, Zhe, Tianzhen Hong, and Han Li."Informing the planning of rotating power outages in heat waves through data analytics of connected smart thermostats for residential buildings."Environmental Research Letters 16.7 (2021) 074003. DOI

Butzbaugh, Joshua, Robert Hosbach, and Alan K. Meier."Miscellaneous electric loads: Characterization and energy savings potential."Energy and Buildings 241 (2021) 110892. DOI

Walker, Iain S., Paul Francisco, and Eric Werling."Reducing COVID-19 Transmission in Homes."Building Performance (2021).

Therkelsen, Peter L., Heidi Fuchs, William Miller, A. Whitlock, and E. Rightor."Strategic Energy Management Program Persistence and Cost Effectiveness An Analysis of the SEM Program Landscape." (2021). DOI

Chen, Yuting, Heidi Fuchs, Jonah Schein, Victor H. Franco, Hannah Stratton, Thomas A. Burke, and Camilla Dunham."Water heating energy use reductions from EPA WaterSense lavatory plumbing fittings."Resources, Conservation and Recycling, Volume 174, 2021, 105781, ISSN 0921-3449. (2021). DOI

Wei, Max, Sang Hoon Lee, Tianzhen Hong, Brian Conlon, Lucy McKenzie, Bob Hendron, and Alea German."Approaches to cost-effective near-net zero energy new homes with time-of-use value of energy and battery storage."Advances in Applied Energy 2 (2021) 100018. 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

Lin, Guanjing, Marco Pritoni, Yimin Chen, Christopher Weyandt, Raphael Vitti, and Jessica Granderson."Fault “Auto-correction” for HVAC Systems: A Preliminary Study."The 6th International High Performance Buildings Conference at Purdue (2021).

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).