Tools

Building Performance Database (BPD)

The Building Performance Database contains anonymized whole building measured energy performance data on over 1 million commercial and residential buildings. It includes an Application Programming Interface (API) that allows to create third party applications using BPD data.

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Commercial Building Energy Saver (CBES)

CBES is a web-based energy retrofit analysis tool for small-to-medium-sized commercial buildings in California. CBES provides energy benchmarking and three levels of retrofit analysis considering the project goal, data availability, and user experience. CBES offers 82 energy conservation measures (ECMs) for lighting, envelope, plug-in equipment, HVAC, and service hot water retrofit upgrades. CBES uses OpenStudio and EnergyPlus to create and run energy models. An extended version CBESPro covers all U.S. climate zones.

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EnergyPlus

A new-generation building energy simulation program based on DOE-2 and BLAST, with numerous added capabilities.

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A free, open-source library for modeling of building energy and control systems using the equation-based, object-oriented Modelica language. The library enables rapid prototyping of new building systems, development and performance assessment of control algorithms, and analysis of the operation of existing buildings.

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Radiance is a highly accurate ray-tracing software package that is used to evaluate lighting levels and lighting quality from daylight and electric light in virtually any environment. It provides numerical output as well as high quality, photorealistic images of building environments.

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THERM

Used by building component manufacturers, engineers, educators, students, architects, and others interested in heat transfer. It models two-dimensional heat-transfer effects in building components such as windows, walls, foundations, roofs, and doors. It is useful where thermal bridges are of concern.

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Berkeley Lab WINDOW

Calculates performance of window and shading systems. It can be used to design and develop new products, teach about heat transfer through windows, and help develop building energy codes. It calculates total window thermal performance indices (i.e. U-values, solar heat gain coefficients, shading coefficients, and visible transmittances) for glazing and framing, as well as thermal and solar optical effects of a wide range of interior, between glass, and exterior shading systems.

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City Building Energy Saver (CItyBES)

CityBES is a web-based data and computing platform, focusing on energy modeling, benchmarking and performance visualization of a city's building stock to support district or city-scale energy efficiency programs. CityBES uses an international open data standard, CityGML, to represent and exchange 3D city models. CityBES employs CBES to simulate building energy use and calculate savings from energy retrofits. CityBES targets urban planners and developers, city energy managers, building owners, utilities, energy consultants and researchers.

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Building Efficiency Targeting Tool for Energy Retrofits (BETTER)

BETTER is software toolkit that enables building operators to quickly, easily identify the most cost-saving energy efficiency measures in buildings and portfolios using readily available building and energy data.

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BEAM: Behavior, Energy, Autonomy, and Mobility

The Behavior, Energy, Autonomy, and Mobility (BEAM) model is an open-source agent-based regional transportation model that overcomes the limitations of conventional transportation models.

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The Medium and Heavy-Duty Electric Vehicle Infrastructure – Load Operations and Deployment  (HEVI-LOAD) Model is a ground-breaking decision-support tool to help planning agencies and electric utilities understand the charging infrastructure needs and charging load profiles of electric medium- and heavy-duty trucks, thereby minimizing investment risk and maximizing operational reliability.

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BEAM CORE

BEAM CORE integrates BEAM, an agent-based transportation system model, with other models that simulate land-use, vehicle purchase and use by households, market penetration of new vehicle technologies, freight and goods delivery, and energy use, to estimate impacts across a regional transportation system.

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FINancial impacts of Distributed Energy Resources Model (FINDER Model)

The FINancial impacts of Distributed Energy Resources (FINDER) Model is used to quantify the impacts of EE, DR, and/or DG on utility shareholders (reported as earnings and ROE impacts) and utility customers (reported as customer bills and rates). Can also assess the resource costs and benefits of various portfolios of EE, DR, and/or DG.

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ICE Calculator 

The Interruption Cost Estimate (ICE) Calculator tool is designed for electric reliability planners at utilities, government organizations or other entities that are interested in estimating interruption costs and/or the benefits associated with reliability improvements in the United States.

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REFA

A first of its kind tool designed to help utility transmission planners better understand the benefits of reconductoring upgrades, using traditional or advanced conductors.

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FRONTIER

FRONTIER is a web-based energy resilience investment decision tool specifically designed for island(ed) communities. It features an easy-to-use platform to visualize natural threat scenarios, and a benefit-Cost analysis tool complemented with other societal metrics.

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Tracking the Sun Tool

This data visualization tool allows users to further explore the data summarized in Berkeley Lab's annual "Tracking the Sun" report, which describes trends in the technical characteristics of distributed solar PV systems in the U.S.

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LODGE Model

A modified expansion capacity model to optimize siting of DERs on the distribution grid

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Resource Planning Portal

The Resource Planning Portal is a web-based tool that allows users to: input electric utility planning information in a consistent format; benchmark planning assumptions across jurisdictions; and output results in a standardized format for deeper analysis.

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Distributed Energy Resources Customer Adoption Model (DER-CAM)

The Distributed Energy Resources Customer Adoption Model (DER-CAM) is a powerful and comprehensive decision support tool that primarily serves the purpose of finding optimal distributed energy resource (DER) investments in the context of either buildings or multi-energy microgrids.

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Data Center Energy Efficiency Toolkit

Tools presented in the Data Center Energy Efficiency Toolkit can be used sequentially to move from a basic understanding of how energy is used in a data center to identifying opportunities and implementing best practices. 

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Industrial Applications Tools and Resources

The industrial applications tools and resources offer tools that make energy management accessible, actionable, and aligned with business objectives. Built on research and shaped by user feedback, these resources help organizations move from ideas to implementation.

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eProject Builder

eProject Builder (ePB) is a secure, web-based data management platform that allows customers and energy service providers (ESCOs/utilities/contractors) to preserve, track and report information for their portfolio of energy projects in perpetuity. Most functions on this web app require registration.

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