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.
Four BRT case studies have been updated: Parmenter’s Las Colinas, GSA’s Courthouse Annex and LBJ Education building (two in one combined document) and Georgia Tech’s TSRB. The case studies are also posted in the BRT training materials fileshare for use by BOMA and APPA. Additional content for the training from the case studies and material from CBEI’s building 661 have been added to the training modules.
CBEI conducted research to develop and demonstrate a library of diagnostics decision support tools that can enable cost effective diagnostics solutions for existing buildings. This report describes early results in successfully developing and demonstrating the effectiveness of diagnostics and decision support tools for subsystem diagnostics (RTU, DX, AHU-VAV and building envelope subsystems) and fault prioritization.
This report provides a meta-analysis of econometric studies, as well as case studies that provides evidence on substantial price and rent premiums that are associated with sustainable buildings in the commercial sector.
Building 661 (B661) was intended is to be the CBEI Headquarters and was designed to encourage collaboration, and to serve as a catalyst to demonstrate energy efficient retrofit innovations, advocacy, practice and commercialization strategies to radically reduce energy use in the existing commercial/institutional building stock. These case studies review the design, construction and initial operation of the building.
This case study considers the strategy, program structure and financial alternatives for an On-Bill Financing program to be offered by The Navy Yard Electric Utility.
A practical control algorithm for coordinating bot AC and refrigeration equipment was developed and evaluated using an energy simulation testbed for a convenience store. It was validated using actual convenience store data. The simulations allowed evaluations of savings for the unit coordinator compared to conventional control over a cooling season. The controller was designed to minimize implementation costs in that it does not require additional sensors and is self-learning.
During BP5, CBEI worked with NREL and ICF to support the DOE Energy Data Accelerator (EDA). CBEI focused on the stakeholder engagement and communication strategy. The responsibilities involved collecting feedback from municipalities and utilities regarding their success and experience with data aggregation and access strategies. CBEI also assisted the EDA program with the regional aspect of the exit strategy at the end of the Accelerator.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In 2008, Better Building Energy Data Accelerator partners Seattle and Puget Sound Energy (PSE) began the stakeholder engagement process to enable whole-building data access for multi-family and commercial building owners locally.
Between October 2008 and July 2014, Better Buildings EDA partners District of Columbia and Pepco successfully completed an extensive process of stakeholder engagement to enable whole building data access for multifamily, commercial, and federal building owners in their jurisdiction.