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

Ham, Sang woo, Lazlo Paul, Donghun Kim, Marco Pritoni, Richard E. Brown, and Jingjuan Feng."Decarbonization of heat pump dual fuel systems using a practical model predictive control: Field demonstration in a small commercial building."Applied Energy 361 (2024) 122935. DOI

Shackelford, Jordan, Spencer M. Dutton, Cynthia Regnier, Wanyu R. Chan, and Alastair Robinson."Modeled Retrofit Package Performance for Schools." (2024). DOI

Webster, Brett, Lucas Toffoli, Martha Campbell, Aven Satre-Meloy, Leslie Badger, Alison Donovan, Damon Lane, Kevin McGrath, Eric Wilson, Janet Reyna, Cheryn Metzger, and Tyler Pilet."Accelerating Residential Building Decarbonization: Market Guidance to Scale Zero-Carbon-Aligned Buildings."Advanced Building Construction (2024).

Haddad, Shamila, Wanni Zhang, Riccardo Paolini, Kai Gao, Muzahim Altheeb, Abdulrahman Al Mogirah, Abdullatif BinMoammar, Tianzhen Hong, Ansar Khan, C. Cartalis, A. Polydorose, and Mattheos Santamouris."Quantifying the Energy Impact of Heat Mitigation in Cities: A Catalyst for Building Energy Saving."Nature Cities (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

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

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

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).

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

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).

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

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

Langevin, Jared, Aven Satre-Meloy, Andrew Satchwell, Ryan Hledik, Julia Olszewski, Kate Peters, and Handi Chandra-Putra."Demand-side solutions in the U.S. building sector could achieve deep emissions reductions and avoid over $100 billion in power sector costs."One Earth 6.8 (2023) 1005-2031. DOI

Hu, shan, Xin Zhou, Da Yan, Fei Guo, Tianzhen Hong, and Yi Jiang."A systematic review of building energy sufficiency towards energy and climate targets."Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 181 (2023) 113316. DOI

Roa, Carlos Duarte, Paul Raftery, Anand Prakash, and Therese Peffer."Field Demonstration of the Brick Ontology to Scale up the Deployment of ASHRAE Guideline 36 Control Sequences."ASHRAE Annual Conference 2023 (2023). DOI

Paul, Lazlo, Flavia deAndrade Pereira, Sang woo Ham, Marco Pritoni, Richard E. Brown, and Jingjuan Feng."Open Building Operating System: an Open-Source Grid Responsive Control Platform for Buildings."ASHRAE Annual Conference 2023 (2023).

Malik, Jeetika, Handi Chandra Putra, Kaiyu Sun, and Tianzhen Hong."On the applicability of various levels of detail for occupant behavior representation and modeling in building performance simulation."Building Simulation (2023). DOI

Hu, shan, Xin Zhou, Da Yan, Fei Guo, Tianzhen Hong, and Yi Jiang."A systematic review of building energy sufficiency towards energy and climate targets."Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 181 (2023) 113316. DOI

Perera, A.T.D., Kavan Javanroodi, Dasaraden Mauree, Vahid M. Nik, Pietro Florio, Tianzhen Hong, and Deliang Chen."Challenges resulting from urban density and climate change for the EU energy transition."Nature Energy 8.4 (2023) 397 - 412. DOI

Perera, A.T.D., Kenichi Soga, Yujie Xu, Peter Nico, and Tianzhen Hong."Enhancing flexibility for climate change using seasonal energy storage (aquifer thermal energy storage) in distributed energy systems."Applied Energy 340 (2023) 120957. DOI