Buildings Domain
About Buildings
Buildings use 74% of the United States’ electricity and account for 39% of our total energy use and 35% of our carbon emissions (NIST, 2021). As a result, to achieve net-zero emissions, buildings need to become flexible, resilient, and smarter. Widespread adoption of existing energy-efficiency building technologies and the introduction of new emerging technologies has the potential to reduce energy use in buildings by 50%. Efficient, zero carbon buildings take advantage of cost-effective technology to reduce emissions while increasing health, equity, and economic prosperity in local communities.
Emerging Technologies
There are four crucial trends driving zero carbon buildings innovation: decarbonization, electrification, efficiency, and digitalization. New technologies promise to increase energy efficiency by eliminating fossil fuels for heating, using renewable energy sources, grid-integration, and more effective materials. Emerging technology focus areas for buildings technology includes the following:
Building Electrical Appliances, Devices, and Systems
Advanced Insulation and Sealants
Smart Grid Integrations
Building Energy Modeling
Building Controls
Building Equipment
Lighting R&D
High-Efficiency Thermal Energy Storage
Opaque Envelopes
Intellectual Property
35
IP available for licensing
Categories
Equipment
Envelope
Thermal Storage
Controls
Building Test Bed Facilities
Location: Oak Ridge National Lab
From benchtop wind tunnels to computational fluid dynamics modeling to large-scale environmental chambers, BTRIC provides a range of capabilities to advance building technologies. These include envelope and equipment laboratories and flexible research platforms that offer the opportunity to plug and play, placing technologies into real-world, highly instrumented buildings for evaluation. Watch the BTRIC Virtual Tour.
FLEXLAB® for Buildings, Renewables and Grid
Location: Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
One-of-a-kind testing facility for energy-efficient building technologies, grid technologies, and distributed energy resources testing individually or as an integrated system, under real-world conditions that is helping to develop the next generation of innovative, energy systems.
Connected Devices Lab
Location: Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
The Connected Devices lab develops prototypes and tests small devices and plug loads with a focus on:
Energy Reporting
Zero Standby Energy
Direct DC Devices
Small DC System Testing
Communication and Networks
Advanced Windows Testbed
Location: Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
Investigates building façade systems to promote the advancement of interactive façade, lighting, and HVAC systems.
Refrigeration Testing Facility
Location: Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
Evaluates the performance of refrigerator-freezers, refrigerators, freezers, wine chillers, and ice makers. It is a temperature and humidity controlled environmental room that provides controlled environmental conditions.
New technologies can be evaluated to assess increased efficiency performance and potential standardized test protocol modifications.
Indoor Environment Facilities
Location: Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
Study the factors that impact emissions from indoor pollutant sources such as materials, combustion, cooking, electronics and consumer products; physical-chemical processes that impact exposure; performance of novel air cleaning technologies; and air quality sensing devices among other applications.
The Engine: 750 Main
Location: The Engine, 750 Main Street, Cambridge, MA
Chemistry and Analytical Labs
Machine Shop and Welding Station
3D Printing Studio, Laser Cutter, and Electronics Lab
Leading Building Innovation
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is the domain chair for Buildings in the Cradle to Commerce program.
ORNL delivers scientific discoveries and technical breakthroughs needed to realize solutions in energy and national security and provide economic benefit to the nation. ORNL’s translational R&D approach spans fundamental science to demonstration and deployment, leveraging signature strengths in materials, neutrons, nuclear, and computing sciences. ORNL’s researchers play a pivotal role in America’s energy transformation into a clean, efficient, flexible, and secure energy future and deliver breakthroughs in energy from generation to distribution and storage to end use.
Domain Chair
Melissa Lapsa
Building Technologies Program Manager,
Oak Ridge National Lab
Technology Transfer Lead
Andreana C. Leskovjan
Commercialization Manager
Oak Ridge National Lab
Business Lead
Yeonjin Bae
R&D Associate Staff,
Oak Ridge National Lab
DOE Technical Program Manager
Ram Narayanamurthy
Deputy Director,
Building Technologies Office
U.S. Department of Energy
DOE Technical Program Manager
Nicholas Ryan
ORISE Science, Technology, and Policy Fellow, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)