Grid-interactive Efficient Buildings: State Briefing Paper

In states across the nation, the electricity system is changing, presenting challenges and opportunities for the delivery of reliable, clean, and affordable power to America’s homes, businesses, and institutions. As variable renewable generation and distributed energy resources (DERs)—including energy efficiency, demand response (DR), onsite generation, energy storage, and electric vehicles (EVs)—grow, the management of electricity is becoming more complex.

Fortunately, advancing technologies open the prospect for more flexible management of building and facility energy loads to benefit occupants, owners, and the grid. Grid-interactive Efficient Buildings (GEBs) take advantage of these new capabilities to optimize energy management by using sensors, analytics, …

Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings: An Introduction for State and Local Governments

The work described in this study was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Building Technologies Office, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, under Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231. This study was prepared under DOE’s authority to encourage and facilitate the exchange of information among State and local governments with respect to energy conservation and energy efficiency, and provide technical assistance on such matters. This study was specifically prepared for the use and dissemination of the State and Local Energy Efficiency (SEE) Action Network, a DOE program that DOE and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency facilitate, …

Unlocking Hidden Value in Class B/C Office Buildings: Best Practices for Pursuing Low-Cost, High-Impact Energy Efficiency and Green Leasing Strategies

This report shows how improving the energy efficiency of Class B and C office buildings is doable with relatively simple, lower-cost measures that not only enhance building performance, but boost property values to make the buildings more competitive.

This research, generously supported with funding from the Building Owners and Managers Association and Yardi and prepared by ULI’s Greenprint Center for Building Performance and the Rocky Mountain Institute, explores the challenges and opportunities to achieve energy efficiency across Class B/C office portfolios. This market is a traditionally forgotten segment for energy efficiency and green leasing as information, resources, and funding constraints …

Accelerating Building Decarbonization: Eight Attainable Policy Pathways to Net Zero Carbon Buildings For All

Buildings that emit no greenhouse gas emissions during their operation are vital to meeting the SDGs and Paris Agreement targets. But in the past, zero carbon buildings have been assumed to be only attainable by technologically advanced or wealthy countries. New WRI research finds there are policy pathways to reach zero carbon buildings regardless of location or development status. The report identifies eight pathways countries can take to reach zero carbon buildings by reducing energy demand and cleaning energy supply.

Cities will lead the shift to net zero carbon buildings (ZCBs) and will therefore play a major role in achieving

Local Climate Action: Cities Tackle Emissions of Commercial Buildings

As a significant source of emissions, cities have an important role to play in addressing the carbon footprint of activities occurring within their boundaries. Among many actions targeting different sectors, cities are actively pursuing improvements in the energy performance of commercial buildings. This brief explores several policies that leading cities are adopting: energy use benchmarking and disclosure mandates, retro-commissioning and retrofitting policies, and requirements for building upgrades to meet current codes. Our review finds these policies stand to deliver and facilitate emissions reductions in cities that adopt them. However, it should be noted that achieving deep reductions and a true …

Cool Buildings: Bundled Policies to Promote Super-efficient Space Conditioning

Rising standards of living and global warming are increasing the demand for space cooling in buildings, creating the need for new climate adaptation and carbon mitigation strategies. The approach examined here focuses on a bundle of policies aimed at catalyzing the rapid market penetration of super-efficient heat pumps, within the context of a decarbonizing electric grid. The bundle of catalyzing policies (appliance standards, research and development, and deployment programs) is examined using the National Energy Modeling System to evaluate the likely impacts and the costs and benefits of this strategy in the U.S. We conclude that the policy bundle could …

Can Benchmarking and Disclosure Laws Provide Incentives for Energy Efficiency Improvements in Buildings?

Building energy use accounted for 38 percent of total US carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2012, and roughly half of those emissions were attributable to the commercial building sector. A new policy that has been adopted in 10 US cities and one US county is a requirement that commercial and sometimes also multifamily residential building owners disclose their annual energy use and benchmark it relative to other buildings. We discuss these nascent policies, preliminary analyses of the data that have been collected so far, and how to evaluate whether they are having an effect on energy use and CO2 emissions. …

Issue Brief: Obama FY2016 Budget Proposal: Sustainable Energy, Buildings, Transportation and Climate

On February 2, 2015, President Obama released his $4 trillion fiscal year (FY) 2016 budget proposal for the federal government. The request includes $563 billion for non-defense discretionary spending – $5 billion over FY 2015 enacted levels. The budget reflects the administration’s “all of the above” energy strategy, as well as its continued focus on
addressing climate change and investing in infrastructure. The proposed 2016 budget increases the Department of Energy’s (DOE) funding by 9 percent over 2014 enacted levels, raises the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) budget by 5.5 percent, and hikes the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) funding by 31 …

Impacts of climate change on energy consumption and peak demand in buildings: A detailed regional approach

This paper presents the results of numerous commercial and residential building simulations, with the purpose of examining the impact of climate change on peak and annual building energy consumption over the portion of the EIC (Eastern Interconnection) located in the United States. The climate change scenario considered includes changes in mean climate characteristics as well as changes in the frequency and duration of intense weather events. Simulations were performed using the BEND (Building Energy Demand) model which is a detailed building analysis platform utilizing EnergyPlusTM as the simulation engine. Over 26,000 building configurations of different types, sizes, vintages, and characteristics …

Building Performance: Design through Operations, Setting the Framework for Energy Data and Design Continuity in High Performance Buildings

This report examines various sources of building performance data, identifies Key Performance Indicators that support the analysis of building performance data, and discusses how to establish a feedback loop among designers, managers, and tenants.…