News

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Building Efficiency Targeting Tool for Energy Retrofits (BETTER) is a free, award-winning online tool developed by Berkeley Lab with support from DOE’s Building Technologies Office (BTO) that increases the speed and scale of energy retrofit identification in commercial buildings. The virtual tool enabled one California state agency to avoid audit costs of $3.3... Read more

BETTER wins the 2020 LBNL Director's Award for Exceptional Achievement in Technology Transfer which recognizes the BETTER team's exemplary efforts in building relationships with industry to advance the science of data-driven, remote building energy analysis to improve building energy efficiency at speed and scale worldwide. https://recognition.lbl.gov/2020-laureates/... Read more

The Building Efficiency Targeting Tool for Energy Retrofits (BETTER), a technology that identifies cost-saving energy reductions in building portfolios, continues to win accolades and support from researchers and investors alike. Already the winner of multiple awards, including an R&D 100, recognizing it as one of 2020’s most innovative and disruptive technologies, BETTER recently became a... Read more

The Energy Technologies Area (ETA) won three R&D 100 awards in the areas of higher energy efficiency in buildings, making lithium batteries safer and development of an innovative tool; all together the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) took home seven awards. For more than 50 years, the annual R&D 100 Awards have recognized 100 technologies of the... Read more

Despite the precarious future emissions outlook, China’s current climate targets are within reach, with multiple studies mapping out scenarios to achieve high penetrations of renewables in the coming decades.But as a new paper from Stony Brook University and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researchers points out, even these optimistic analyses fail to capture just how dramatically... Read more

Release of "beta" Building Efficiency Targeting Tool for Energy Retrofits (BETTER) Johnson Controls (NYSE: JCI) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) announced the release of the beta Building Efficiency Targeting Tool for Energy Retrofits (BETTER) (better.lbl.gov/) to the public today. The easy-to-use, open-source BETTER tool allows building owners and managers to rapidly... Read more

Under the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center for Building Energy Efficiency (CERC-BEE) consortium, which is implemented by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a team of researchers and industry professionals from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute (PCI), and Gate Precast is working collaboratively to develop next-generation... Read more

Johnson Controls’ new Asia-Pacific headquarters in Shanghai, a CERC-BEE Showcase Building, is the first triple-certified green building in China, achieving LEED Platinum, IFC EDGE and China Three Star Certification.To ensure building operations remain sustainable over time, Johnson Controls turned to Building Information Modeling energy analysis using Autodesk software to quickly create an... Read more

Oak Ridge National Laboratory is collaborating with Pre-cast/Prestressed Concrete Institute (PCI) and Gate Precast on evaluating 3D-printed molds, which have faster lead times, increased durability, and better quality, for the Domino-Site A building in New York City under the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center Building Energy Efficiency (CERC-BEE) Integrated Building Design and Construction... Read more

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and Johnson Controls, Inc. released an alpha version of the Building Efficiency Targeting Tool for Energy Retrofits (BETTER) on January 15 at the 2019 AHR conference in Atlanta, Georgia.BETTER provides commercial, institutional, and government building owners and managers with an open-source, easy-to-use tool to target efficiency improvements by... Read more

After serving four years as Berkeley Lab's Associate Director for Energy Technologies, Ramamoorthy Ramesh will be returning to his research in ultra low-power electronics while also helping to lead a major Berkeley Lab research initiative in next-generation, energy-efficient microelectronics.This new initiative has been dubbed "Beyond Moore's Law," as it seeks the solution to what will happen when... Read more

Ravi Prasher has been appointed Associate Laboratory Director for Energy Technologies at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). The announcement follows an international search.Prasher, an internationally renowned scientist in the field of thermal energy science and technologies, has been director of Berkeley Lab's Energy Storage and Distributed Resources... Read more

Clay Nesler, Vice President of Global Sustainability and Industry Initiatives at Johnson Controls Inc., recently discussed how the US-China Clean Energy Research Center Building Energy Efficiency (CERC-BEE) program is advancing smart buildings and technologies that conserve energy create economic development opportunities for the United States. Please click on the links below for Nesler's... Read more

In the October 2017 Special EditionofUSGBC+ Magazine, the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) highlights the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center Building Energy Efficiency (CERC-BEE) program.The article, “Advocating for Change – China makes its mark on the world of sustainability,” by Elizabeth Beardsley. The article discusses the value USGBC places on CERC-BEE for its collaborative... Read more

On Oct. 19th, the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center Building Energy Efficiency (CERC-BEE) program hosted its first U.S.-China bilateral Industry Advisory Board (IAB) Meeting at the Johnson Controls Inc. (JCI) Headquarters (HQ) Asia-Pacific (APAC) in Shanghai, China. More than 80 stakeholders from the U.S. and Chinese government, researcher institutes, national laboratories, private industry,... Read more

Berkeley Lab-led study confirms efficacy of cool roofs in parts of China.Working with Chinese researchers, the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has conducted the first comprehensive study of cool roofs in China and concluded that they would be effective in substantially reducing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions in climate zones with hot... Read more

The U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center Building Energy Efficiency (CERC-BEE) Program: Delivering Innovation in Building Technologies through Bilateral Collaboration and Public-Private PartnershipsLed by the BTO and the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), and managed by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and the China Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development... Read more

On July 11th, the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center Building Energy Efficiency (CERC-BEE) program hosted its Semi-Annual Industry Advisory Board (IAB) Meeting at the U.S. Green Building Council office in Washington, DC. Approximately 50 stakeholders participated in this event, including representatives from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), national laboratories, private industry, and... Read more

The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development (MOHURD) Center of Science and Technology of Construction (CSTC) held seminars themed “Concept and Roadmap of Net-Zero Energy Building” and “Workshop Demonstration of Net-Zero Energy Building Technology” in March and June 2017 respectively. Two project leads - China Academy of Building Research (CABR) and Shenzhen Institute of Building... Read more

Johnson Controls, Inc. (JCI), Chair of the US-China Clean Energy Research Center Building Energy Efficiency (CERC-BEE) Industry Advisory Board (IAB), recently discussed how building energy efficiency public-private partnerships, such as CERC-BEE, are helping countries meet their energy and sustainability goals. Please click on the links below for recent articles published by the World Economic... Read more

U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center Building Energy Efficiency (CERC-BEE) researchers — Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Johnson Controls Inc. (JCI), and ICF International (ICF) from the United States and the China Academy of Building Research (CABR) from China — recently drafted CERC's first U.S.-China joint intellectual property (IP) agreement for the development of an... Read more

On October 20th, US-China Clean Energy Research Center, Building Energy Efficiency (CERC-BEE) hosted an workshop on “Uncovering Barriers and Solutions to Building Energy Efficiency” in Shanghai, China.The workshop sought to obtain a 360 degree perspective on the critical barriers and most promising solutions to advance building energy efficiency retrofits in China. Approximately 50... Read more

On October 17th and 18th at the Singyes Solar building in Zhuhai, China, the CERC-BEE program held a bilateral stakeholder meeting to formally close out phase 1.0 of its work (2010-2015) and launch phase 2.0 (2016-2020). The stakeholder meeting brought together more than 50 representatives from the U.S. and Chinese government, researcher institutes, national laboratories, private industry,... Read more

LIQUIDARMOR, a sprayable liquid sealant developed by The Dow Chemical Company and evaluated at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), recently won the 2016 Gold Edison Award for Building Construction & Lighting Innovations. The Edison Awards honor the best in innovation and excellence in the development of new products and services.The ORNL and Dow Chemical collaboration to develop and evaluate... Read more

New Berkeley Lab study uses regional climate model to compare heat waves to normal summer conditions.It is well established that white roofs can help mitigate the urban heat island effect, reflecting the sun’s energy back into space and reducing a city’s temperature under normal weather conditions. In a new study of Guangzhou, China, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)... Read more