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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 - To demonstrate the feasibility of intelligent agent control techniques for reducing energy consumption in commercial buildings by optimizing the performance of interacting building systems and to create a research infrastructure suitable for ongoing development and testing 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
Using NIST's small chamber test facility, researchers are assessing the performance of a prototype reference material to improve the measurement of volatile organic compound emissions from building products.

Contaminant Control in High-Performance Buildings

Ongoing
Objectives: 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
solar panels

Electrical Performance Measurements of Solar Photovoltaic Cells and Arrays

Ongoing
Objective - To develop and improve the measurement science to: (1) accurately characterize the electrical and optical performance of solar photovoltaic cells, (2) design a standard reference cell with appropriate calibrations under a standard reporting condition or an ad-hoc reporting condition as

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 - Develop the measurement science necessary to evaluate various technological approaches, with a focus on the air distribution systems, to achieve thermally comfortable and healthy net-zero energy residential buildings via innovative monitoring techniques, methods of test, performance
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: Develop, integrate, apply, and deploy measurement science assessing the sustainability performance of energy technologies and systems in an integrated building design and operation context, and provide the necessary information to stakeholders to make more sustainable choices in
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 development and implementation of the most efficient and cost-effective space-conditioning options for energy-efficient buildings. What is the new technical idea? (Tasks 1-4): The unique aspects of high-efficiency homes require new
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

Water Use in High-Performance Buildings

Ongoing
Objective: To develop new measurement methods, tools, and modeling techniques, and collect data to improve building water efficiency, improve water heating energy efficiency standards and codes, and quantify water quality impacts of efficiency measures on high-performance building plumbing systems
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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