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Representatives of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the Greenhouse Gas Inventory and Research Center of Korea (GIR) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to explore potential areas of collaboration. For Berkeley Lab, the MOU is centered in its Environmental Energy Technologies Division (EETD). The areas of potential cooperation include energy sector planning, policy... Read more

The 40th anniversary of the founding of the Environmental Energy Technologies Division at Berkeley Lab is November 1, 2013.Some Thursdays in November, we’ll look back at a significant energy-efficient technology developed by EETD and its research partners.This WeekFor more than a decade, EETD has worked with the data center industry, other research organizations, and government agencies to find... Read more

November Special Focus: Energy Efficiency, Buildings and the Electric GridOver 15 years of research, Berkeley Lab's Environmental Energy Technologies Division has worked with the California Energy Commission, and the Department of Energy to evaluate and improve performance monitoring tools for energy savings in commercial buildings. Many new performance monitoring tools now provide building... Read more

November Special Focus: Energy Efficiency, Buildings and the Electric Grid EnergyPlus is the Department of Energy's Building Technologies Office's free, open-source whole-building energy simulation engine. Developed by a diverse team of building physics researchers and mechanical engineers at the National Labs and various consultancies, EnergyPlus is the engine behind a large and growing number of... Read more

For decades, California has used groundbreaking tools to collect and analyze emissions data from a variety of sources to establish a scientific basis for policy making. As its scope has expanded to include greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions, it has sought out similar tools to use to achieve the goals of legislation such as the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB 32).To support this effort,... Read more

A 24-member delegation of representatives of local Economic and Information Technology Commissions, selected industrial associations, the China International Engineering Consulting Corporation, the China Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Group, and others – all hosted by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) – visited LBNL’s China Energy Group on... Read more

The 40th anniversary of the founding of the Environmental Energy Technologies Division at Berkeley Lab is November 1, 2013.Every Thursday during October, we’ll look back at a significant energy-efficient technology developed by EETD and its research partners.This WeekEETD has developed energy-efficient technologies that save energy in your home and workplace. One of these is cool roofing... Read more

LBNL’s China Energy Group lead a delegation of more than 30 U.S. Clean Energy Research Center, Building Energy Efficiency Consortium members including research leads, industrial partners and technical advisers to meet with Chinese collaborators in Wuhan, China on October 29-31. This year’s U.S.-China gathering, aimed at facilitating the development of work plans for the second half of the... Read more

U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Moniz gave a talk on "Climate and Energy: the Road Ahead for US-China Cooperation" at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, on Monday, October 28th. In his speech, Secretary Moniz explained that he believes that "the challenges of energy and climate change are the most urgent facing our generation all around the globe" and that "China and the United States must... Read more

The 40th anniversary of the founding of the Environmental Energy Technologies Division at Berkeley Lab is November 1, 2013.Every Thursday during October, we'll look back at a significant energy-efficient technology developed by EETD and its research partners.This WeekEETD has developed energy-efficient technologies that save energy in your home and workplace. One of these is aerosol duct sealing.... Read more

October-November Special Focus: Energy Efficiency, Buildings and the Electric GridAn increasing fraction of the most efficient appliances on the market operate on direct current (DC) internally, making it possible to use DC from renewable energy systems directly and avoid the losses inherent in converting power to alternating current (AC) and back, as is current practice. Products are also... Read more

October-November Special Focus: Energy Efficiency, Buildings, and the Electric Grid Fifty-seven percent of U.S. servers are housed in server closets, server rooms, and localized data centers, in what are commonly referred to as small server rooms, which comprise 99.3 percent of all server spaces in the U.S. While many mid-tier and enterprise-class data centers are owned by large corporations that... Read more

October-November Special Focus: Energy Efficiency, Buildings, and the Electric GridHonda Motor Company Inc is proceeding with plans to build a Smart Home in Davis, California, to demonstrate the latest in renewable energy technologies and energy efficiency. The home is expected to produce more energy than is consumed, demonstrating how the goal of “zero net energy” can be met in the near term... Read more

October-November Special Focus: Energy Efficiency, Buildings, the Electric GridThroughout October and November, EETD presents a special series of articles, research highlights, and social media posts addressing some of its recent research on energy efficiency and other buildings-related topics, and the electric grid.Tightening the envelope of homes should save energy by reducing the loss of heat... Read more

The 40th anniversary of the founding of the Environmental Energy Technologies Division at Berkeley Lab is November 1, 2013.Every Thursday during October, we’ll look back at a significant energy-efficient technology developed by EETD and its research partners.This WeekEETD has developed energy-efficient technologies that are all around you, saving energy in your home and workplace. One of those... Read more

A delegation from Yichun Municipality of Jiangxi Province, China, visited the University of California, Berkeley, on October 16, 2013, interested in learning more ideas and experiences in the development of a low carbon economy. Two researchers, Gang He and Lixuan Hong, from the China Energy Group of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, gave the delegation two presentations that focus on the... Read more

China Energy Group staff members presented two posters in the Berkeley Energy & Resources Collaborative (BERC) Innovation Expo on Thursday, October 10th. The two posters, both of which received 4th place awards, were: A Provincial-Scale Wind Resource Assessment for China Based on a Decade of Hourly Wind Speed Data, by Gang He Quantifying the Co-benefits of Energy-Efficiency Projects and... Read more

The 40th anniversary of the founding of the Environmental Energy Technologies Division at Berkeley Lab is this November 1, 2013.Every Thursday during October, we’ll look back at a significant energy-efficient technology developed by EETD and its research partners.This WeekEETD has developed energy-efficient technologies that are all around you, saving energy in your home and workplace. One is... Read more

The cover story of the September 30, 2013 issue of Engineering News-Record is all about FLEXLAB®, EETD's Facility for Low-Energy eXperiments in Buildings. The article quotes several staff members of the Environmental Energy Technologies Division, including FLEXLAB manager, Cindy Regnier, and Stephen Selkowitz.Engineering News-Record is widely read by construction engineering professionals. Read... Read more

October-November Special Focus: Energy Efficiency, Buildings, and the Electric Grid'Other' is the fastest growing energy use in residential and commercial buildings—devices such as computers, displays, printers and other office equipment, as well as small household appliances ranging from kitchen electrics like coffee makers, toasters, and mixers to fans, clocks and portable space heaters. To... Read more

PORTLAND – On hot summer days, 74-year-old HelenRuth Stephens doesn't dare leave her apartment. Not to get the mail or take out the trash."You don't do it because you'll be breathless by the time you get back," she says.She suffers from asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Both affect her lungs. Hot weather drains her energy, she says, and makes it hard for her to breathe.Stephens... Read more

The price at which electricity from large-scale solar power projects in the western United States is being sold has fallen by more than two-thirds in the last five years, according to a new report released today by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The report—"Utility-Scale Solar 2012: An Empirical Analysis of Project Cost, Performance, and Pricing Trends in the United States"—focuses... Read more

The China Energy Group – founded in 1988 by Mark Levine – celebrated its 25th Anniversary at a reception hosted by Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) following the 4th U.S.-China Energy Efficiency Forum in Washington DC. Remarks in honor of the Group were made by Jules Kortenhorst (CEO of RMI), Jon Creyts (Program Director, RMI), and Jiang Lin (Senior Vice President of Energy Foundation and... Read more

Building4change, a website that addresses to sustainability, innovation and best practice in the built environment, has named 13 people as Stars of Building Science Virtual Academy of Excellence for the year 2013. One of them is Stephen Selkowitz of the Environmental Energy Technologies Division. Cited as an “internationally recognized expert in window technologies, façade systems and... Read more

October 1, 201310:00 to 11:30 AMLearn how the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, General Services Administration, Forest Service, Department of Energy Federal Energy Management Program, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and U.S. Coast Guard are working together to purchase renewable energy produced from solar panels on rooftops, ground-mount locations, and/or carports at their facilities.... Read more