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Engineering Laboratory

Building Energy & Environment Division

The Building Energy & Environment Division enables cost-effective, energy-efficient, grid-integrated buildings that have healthy and comfortable indoor environments and reduced environmental impacts through advances in measurement science and standards development.

Through extensive publications and active participation in consensus organizations such as the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Society for Testing and Materials, and the Fully Integrated and Automated Technology Consortium, research results from the Division are disseminated to the private sector in a timely manner and provide the basis for many consensus standards used throughout the building industry.

News and Updates

Embedded Intelligence in Buildings

green construction

Embedded Intelligence in Buildings Program

Ongoing
Objective: To develop and deploy advances in measurement science that will improve building operations to achieve lower operating costs, energy efficiency, occupant comfort/safety/security, and smart grid integration through the use of intelligent building systems. What is the problem? “The world is
hi-tech grid

Building Integration with Smart Grid

Ongoing
Objective - To develop the measurement science for industry standards that will enable interconnection of home and building automation and control systems with a future "smart" utility grid, provide consumers with energy usage information, and support industry efforts to develop the needed standards
hi-tech building

Commissioning Building Systems for Improved Energy Performance

Ongoing
Objective - To improve the operating efficiency of building systems by providing the measurement science needed to develop improved building commissioning techniques that utilize embedded capabilities of building control systems, and accelerate the adoption of cost-effective commissioning as
heatpump fan

Fault Detection and Diagnostics for Air-Conditioners and Heat Pumps

Ongoing
Objective - Develop fault detection and diagnostic (FDD) methods and measurement tools to ensure air conditioners (ACs) and heat pumps (HPs) perform as designed throughout their lifetime and develop a testing and rating methodology to assess relative merits of different commercial FDD products. What
hi-tech Building

Intelligent Building Agents

Ongoing
Objective - Demonstrate the feasibility of AI control techniques for reducing the energy costs of HVAC systems in commercial buildings and create a research infrastructure, the Intelligent Building Agents Laboratory (IBAL), suitable for ongoing demonstration, development, and evaluation of advanced

Semantic Interoperability for Building Data

Ongoing
Objective - To pursue an effort that results in national and international standards that define concepts and a methodology to create interoperable, machine-readable semantic models for representing building system information for analytics, automation, and control. What is the technical idea? The
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Net-Zero Energy, High-Performance Buildings

Illustrated cutaway showing the inside of the Net Zero Energy House

Net-Zero Energy, High-Performance Buildings Program

Ongoing
Objective: To develop and deploy advances in measurement science to continue moving the nation toward net-zero energy, high-performance buildings while maintaining healthier and more resilient indoor environments. What is the problem? Buildings account for 40 % of the primary energy consumption, 74
NIST researcher setting up air cleaner experiments in large stainless steel environmental chamber

Contaminant Control in High-Performance Buildings

Ongoing
Objective To better understand how strategies to achieve resilient buildings will impact chemical reactions, rates, and concentrations of high-priority indoor air contaminants. To develop test methods and building control strategies to reduce chemical levels in low-energy buildings, and to enable

Flammability Metrics for New Low-GWP Refrigerants

Ongoing
Objective: To develop the capability to measure and predict the burning velocity of mixtures of low-Global Warming Potential (GWP) refrigerants to allow the ranking of the mixtures in terms of their flammability, to assist in the selection and implementation of the best replacements for high-GWP
Researchers use novel fluids with nanoparticles to improve the efficiency of chillers that cool large buildings.

Low-GWP Refrigerants for High-Efficiency HVAC&R Equipment

Ongoing
Objective - To develop heat transfer and system performance information that will assist in the selection and implementation of the best replacements for high-GWP hydrofluorocarbon (HFC). What is the new technical idea? Most of the currently used HFC refrigerants will be phased out or phased down

Air Distribution Impacts in Net-Zero Energy Homes

Ongoing
Objective To acquire high-quality data from well-controlled field configurations that inform residential building designers and equipment standards organizations about space conditioning and ventilation system performance characteristics, especially the air distribution system(s), when applied in
Drawing of NIST Net-Zero Energy Residential Test Facility.

Measuring the Performance of Net-Zero Energy Homes

Completed
Objective: Develop the measurement science necessary to evaluate various technological approaches to achieve net-zero energy residential buildings, including innovative monitoring techniques, methods of test, performance metrics and high quality experimental data for the validation and improvement
The Metrics & Tools project assesses whole building sustainability for buildings located in 228 U.S. cities.

Metrics and Tools for Sustainable Buildings

Ongoing
Objective To develop and deploy transparent, open source standards-based data and tools that quantify the life-cycle cost and sustainability performance of building technologies and systems by 2027 through parallel activities focused on developing, releasing, and expanding capabilities and adoption
Measurement of the air velocity profile exiting a section of the rooftop air-conditioning unit's heat exchanger

Space-Conditioning Options for Energy-Efficient Buildings

Ongoing
Objective Develop and deploy the measurement science to support the implementation of efficient and cost-effective space-conditioning options for energy-efficient buildings. Technical Idea ( Tasks 1-4,6) : The unique aspects of high-efficiency homes require new solutions for space-conditioning
L researcher Steven Emmerich adjusts a multi-gas analyzer that will measure carbon monoxide, oxygen, carbon dioxide and hydrocarbons concentrations produced by such a generator located, against safety advice, in a garage.

Ventilation and Indoor Air Quality in Low-Energy Buildings

Ongoing
Objective: To develop tools to define and verify high-performance indoor air quality in low-energy buildings and data needed to improve the effectiveness of high-performance building standards and programs. What is the new technical idea? The ASHRAE Position Document on Indoor Air Quality (ASHRAE

Premise Plumbing Systems for High-Performance Buildings

Ongoing
Objective To develop new measurement methods, modeling approaches, and data to support improvements in building plumbing design, utility consumption, and water quality. The results of these efforts are intended to support standards development and industry programs to advance innovative technology
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Software

The NIST Data Alignment Tool

The Data Alignment Tool (DAT) was built to assist with the analysis of data used in testing fault detection and diagnostics (FDD) tools and building

Awards

Contacts