The presentations, news, research summaries, reports, and technology overviews are collected here by focus area and represent the body of work developed by the CBEI partners during the 5-year project period. For additional information on market challenges, approach, and impacts, see each focus area overview.
A scalable low-cost optimal chiller plant control algorithm was developed and effectively demonstrated with 128 case studies covering a variety of chiller plant load variations with each case being a weekly simulation of whole-building dynamic HVAC system models with closed loop local controls and supervisory chiller plant controls. Model-in-the-loop (MiL) analysis suggests a promising average energy saving of ~15% for medium office buildings and an average energy saving of ~10% for large hotel buildings.
CBEI developed a web-based integrated design decision support tool which utilizes energy performance data generated through coupling of whole building energy simulation models with systematic search procedures and advanced data analysis techniques. This coupling process was extended with the introduction of a simulation-based numerical optimization framework for the minimization of life cycle costs for building enclosure materials and operational energy consumption for office retrofit cases. This integrated optimization program is highly automated (thereby saving user effort) and utilizes non-commercial, open-source and readily extensible existing toolkits.
This project developed and demonstrated novel techniques for cost-effective AFDD for Air Handling Units for small/medium commercial buildings. The diagnostic accuracy is over 95% and the payback period is less than two years.
Widespread deployment of advanced controls and diagnostics in small and medium buildings has been held back by the cost and complexity involved in applying these solutions to individual buildings. CBEI demonstrated data?driven adaptive, self?learning control?oriented models for building HVAC sub?systems and building thermal and envelope dynamics in two medium buildings.
This report summarized an analysis of ten multifamily buildings for the cost of deep energy retrofits, without including power generation.
CBEI developed and demonstrated a set of tools and approaches for generating and implementing building-specific control algorithms that minimize energy consumption and energy costs while maintaining occupant comfort. The general approach involves the use of model-based predictive control (MPC) with reduced-order models and inverse (data-driven) models for the building envelope, indoor environment, and plant.
CBEI developed a roadmap to guide technology research. The roadmap is focused on conducting research using existing and state-of-the-art building components and systems in an integrated fashion.
Medium office buildings in the Greater Philadelphia offer high potential to reduce building energy consumption. This study assesses the impact of a wide set of ECMs in combinations as retrofit packages, and which combinations offer the most energy conservation for a given investment.
CBEI performed a major retrofit of their headquarters. This report provides early lessons learned from the integrated design process.
This project worked with developers of DOE tools such as the Asset Score Tool and BuildingSync and developed outreach tools and engagements to accelerate and enhance utilization of these tools.
A BIM Planning Guide for Retrofit Projects was developed that enables design teams to quickly plan the use of energy and other model adoption process early in a project.
Masonry buildings constitute a significant portion of the existing building stock built prior to the 1980s in the north-east region of U.S. These buildings often have uninsulated or under-insulated walls which offer a good potential to achieve energy efficiency through improved wall retrofit strategies on the inside of the wall assembly.
The goal of this project was to demonstrate and evaluate a practical business case for implementation of the RTU Coordinator across multiple locations. This report provides a summary of the PnP algorithm, a description of the savings estimates for previous PnP evaluations, a description of site selection processes and savings results for the BoA sites, and a description of the final demonstration sites, implementations and preliminary results.
The airflow in enclosed environments is a wall bounded flow, consisting of circulation, flow separation, and thermal plumes in transitional to fully developed turbulence. This study developed a new Detached Eddy Simulation model for indoor airflow using a semi-v2f model, and this model correctly predicted near-wall flows. This study applied the new DES model to a mixed-ventilation and a strong buoyancy-driven flow in rooms.
Fluid Dynamics (FFD) could be potentially used for real-time indoor airflow simulations. This study developed two-dimensional Fast Fluid Dynamics (2D FFD) into three-dimensional Fast Fluid Dynamics (3D FFD) and improved the data structure for handling computational domain with more complex geometry.