News

Industry could more than double in size from ~$6 billion in 2013 to $11-$15 billion by 2020Aggregate revenue growth rates for U.S. energy service companies (ESCOs) significantly outpaced U.S. GDP growth during the three-year period 2009 to 2011, according to a new report by researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).ESCOs primarily use performance-based contracts to... Read more

Five staff members and two visiting researchers of the China Energy Group participated in the 4th U.S.-China Energy Efficiency Forum, hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy in Washington DC on September 25th and 26th. Lynn Price moderated the session on Energy Management in Energy-Intensive Facilities, Nan Zhou provided an update on the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center – Building Energy... Read more

On Berkeley Lab's News Center website, there's a new story about the China Energy Group's China Energy Databook."In the five years since the China Energy Group of the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) released its last edition of the China Energy Databook, China has achieved two dubious distinctions: it surpassed the United States in energy consumption... Read more

The Heat Island Group's Ben Mandel spoke with Australian radio show Beyond Zero, hosted by Matt Grantham and co-hosted by Chris Jensen (University of Melbourne), about the benefits of cool pavements and LBNL's work to promote cool schoolyards.... Read more

The China Energy Group of the Environmental Energy Technologies Division has a new website. Find out more about what they do at the link below.... Read more

September Special Focus: CalChargeIn preparation for its mid-October launch, CalCharge and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have completed work on their innovative Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) that is expected to become a national model for industry engagement with the national laboratories.Energy storage innovators need cost-effective and clear... Read more

Wang Shi, Chairman and Founder of Vanke, visited LBNL and led a team of Vanke executives and technical experts from China and the U.S. to exchange ideas and information on cutting-edge research, technologies, and emerging areas around energy-efficient buildings in the U.S. and China. Vanke, headquartered in Shenzhen, China, is the world's largest real estate developer and builds more than half of... Read more

September Special Focus: CalChargeAfter nearly two years of research and organizational development efforts, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), CalCEF, and other key partners are only weeks away from the full operational launch of CalCharge. By mid-October, they expect to announce the core group of institutional and major corporate members along with the first tranche of... Read more

EETD Special Lecture Environmental Energy Technologies Division Lawrence Berkeley National LaboratoryGreen Development in China: Certain or Uncertain?SPEAKER: Wang Shi, Founder and Chairman of China Vanke, the largest residential real estate developer in the world.Lecture Date and Time:Wednesday September 18, 2013 12:00 PM Building 50 Auditorium Lawrence Berkeley National LaboratoryChinese... Read more

Daylighting is the strategy of admitting light from the sun and sky to reduce use of electric lighting in buildings. Since lighting energy use represents 13 percent of the total primary energy used by buildings in the United States or 5.42 quadrillion Btus in 2010, these technologies can play a significant role towards meeting U.S. and state energy-efficiency and greenhouse gas emission reduction... Read more

An ultra-efficient two-stage heat pump clothes dryer (HPCD) prototype brought home the gold for the University of Maryland (UMD) design team who developed it during a spirited, year-long competition. The Max Tech and Beyond Design Competition, a project of the Energy Efficiency Standards group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory that is funded by the Emerging Technologies Program of the U.S.... Read more

The ability of high performance computers (HPCs) to solve complex applications very quickly has risen exponentially since their introduction in the 1960s; unfortunately, so has their electricity use. Many supercomputers require more than a megawatt of electricity to operate, and annual electricity costs can easily run into millions of dollars. As the use of HPCs became more widespread, researchers... Read more

Special focus: FLEXLAB® The latest view of construction progress on FLEXLAB's rotating testbed.... Read more

From a General Electric press release:It's a little more complex than making instant oatmeal, but scientists from GE and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) may have just the recipe for next-generation electric vehicle (EV) batteries that achieve desired driving range and cost for consumers.The GE/Berkeley Lab team is developing a water-based, flow battery capable of more than... Read more

As part of an effort to analyze the cost per unit of savings for utility customer-funded energy efficiency programs, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) has reviewed regulatory filings nationwide to produce a program typology and standardized data metrics for assessing energy efficiency program characteristics, costs and impacts. These types, definitions, and naming conventions facilitate... Read more

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) analyzed more than 50,000 home sales near 67 wind facilities in 27 counties across nine U.S. states, yet was unable to uncover any impacts to nearby home property values."This is the second of two major studies we have conducted on this topic [the first was published in 2009 - see below], and in both studies [using two different datasets] we... Read more

Special Focus: FLEXLAB®The Facility for Low Energy eXperiments in Buildings (FLEXLAB®) is designed to be a national focal point for developing, simulating and testing energy-efficient technologies and strategies for buildings. FLEXLAB users will conduct research and develop technologies at FLEXLAB on single components as well as whole-building integrated design and operation aimed at... Read more

In sweltering September 2011, Fresno could have used more trees. Temperatures climbed, winds died and lung-searing ozone spiked the season's highest readings on three days.Worse yet, all three peaks broke the one-hour federal ozone standard between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. on weekdays when children were outside after school.An extensive canopy of trees over streets, parking lots and driveways might have... Read more

Berkeley Lab battery researcher Gao Liu and his team earned a coveted R&D 100 Award this year for their invention of an electrically conductive rubbery adhesive that can be mixed with particles of silicon to form a battery's negative (-) electrode, or anode. Lithium-ion batteries whose anodes are built with this "conducting polymer binder" can have 30 percent more energy storage capacity than... Read more

Applications for EETD’s ITRI-Rosenfeld Postdoctoral Fellowship are open and we are receiving interest from around the world. The fellowship offers a unique opportunity for EETD PIs: the fellowship funds will provide 80% of salary and benefits and a supplemental allowance up to $10,000 per fellowship year, and the host PI will support the remaining 20% of salary through research project funds.... Read more

August Special Focus: FLEXLAB®A unique new facility for the buildings industry is taking shape at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). The Facility for Low Energy eXperiments in Buildings (FLEXLAB) is designed to be a national focal point for developing, simulating and testing energy-efficient technologies and strategies for buildings. FLEXLAB users will conduct research and... Read more

The installed price of solar photovoltaic (PV) power systems in the United States fell substantially in 2012 and through the first half of 2013, according to the latest edition of Tracking the Sun, an annual PV cost tracking report produced by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). Installed prices for PV systems in 2012 fell by a range of roughly... Read more

Jeffery Reimer is a scientist in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division, and UC Berkeley.Scientists would like to apply the same principles by which baking soda removes food odors from refrigerators or silica powder keeps moisture away from electronic devices to scrub carbon dioxide from the exhaust gases of fossil fuel power plants. An excellent candidate for this task is the class of... Read more

But continued Federal policy uncertainty and low natural gas prices create headwinds for the sectorAnnual wind power additions in the United States achieved record levels in 2012, while wind energy pricing is near an all-time low, according to a new report released by the U.S. Department of Energy and prepared by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).Roughly 13.1 gigawatts (GW) of... Read more

The Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute (KERI) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) will explore the possibility of collaborative research on smart grids, demand response, standards, and other joint energy-related R&D, under a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed recently by the leaders of the two organizations.The MOU, signed last week by KERI President Kim... Read more