Buildings News
Explore our archive of buildings news stories.
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buildings research.
Dec. 13, 2022
The 2022–2023 JUMP into STEM Challenge Winners have been announced, featuring six teams of college students with diverse backgrounds and academic majors exploring solutions towards an equitable clean energy future through building science.
Dec. 12, 2022
NREL will begin work early next year on a series of additions and improvements to two of its campuses made possible by $150 million in funding provided by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
Dec. 6, 2022
Analysts at the Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis and National Renewable Energy Laboratory studied lab-to-market pathways for clean energy technologies.
Nov. 18, 2022
A new technical report published by researchers with NREL, the University of Colorado Boulder, and WinBuild Inc. proposes new methods to evaluate how long windows sustain their energy performance.
Nov. 18, 2022
Skyscrapers dominate city skylines, but these massive glass-walled structures can be made more energy efficient through the addition of thermally efficient photovoltaic (PV) windows, according to an analysis by researchers at NREL.
Nov. 15, 2022
Stor4Build is a new consortium on energy storage for buildings that will accelerate the growth, optimization, and deployment of storage technologies. The consortium will be co-led by NREL, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Nov. 14, 2022
124 teams from 97 collegiate institutions are working to solve the climate crisis, one building at a time, by participating in the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2023 Design Challenge.
Nov. 10, 2022
As a child growing up in Massachusetts, Gabriel Prepetit went to football stadiums to watch the games and excitement unfold, but the massive structures around him ultimately made the real lasting impression.
Nov. 10, 2022
Throughout her academic journey, Katrina Ramirez-Meyers has always pursued equal paths of heart and science. Whether helping West African communities in the Peace Corps or building her skills as an engineer and scholar, her end goal is always about empowering people.
Nov. 1, 2022
An NREL project is among seven selected by the U.S. Department of Energy to help fast-track affordable housing solutions for disadvantaged communities.
Nov. 1, 2022
At the start of Otto Van Geet's career, most research laboratories spent energy freely for science. Thirty years later, laboratories are more likely to be monuments of futuristic sustainability, and that progress is thanks in large part to Otto's creative work in designing efficient buildings.
Oct. 31, 2022
The U.S. construction industry is facing a housing supply deficit on the order of millions—and growing—at a time when climate targets mean that every unit needs be built as efficiently, sustainably, and affordably as possible.
Oct. 27, 2022
For its latest NREL-based cohort, the Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN²) formed an all-demonstration group, where each participant would create a demonstration of their technologies as part of the program. Among the first to have its demonstration project underway is San Francisco-based Kit Switch.
Oct. 26, 2022
Eleven years ago, the buds of what would become one of NREL's most impactful and successful partnerships began to bloom. NREL commissioned a new data center in the new Energy Systems Integration Facility, designed to house a new supercomputer--and push NREL into the leading edge of high-performance computing.
Oct. 18, 2022
One week remains for collegiate teams to register for the next U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon cycle!
Oct. 13, 2022
The future of buildings—constructing new ones and transforming existing ones—will serve as a cornerstone of a decarbonized society.
Oct. 3, 2022
Pioneer. Visionary. Mentor. Buildings Champion. These are a few words that describe Sheila Hayter's impact during her 30-year career.
Sept. 29, 2022
West Gate is a program that embeds innovators at NREL and pairs them with national laboratory scientists and capabilities over a period of two years, during which they have prime access to world-class national laboratory capabilities and expertise to significantly advance the development of their clean-energy technologies.
Sept. 21, 2022
New study led by the Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis identifies drivers, barriers, and costs of adopting building sensors and controls systems.
Sept. 14, 2022
As a child growing up in suburban Nigeria, Opeoluwa Wonuola Olawale recalls when the portable fan in her room stopped working.
Aug. 25, 2022
As early-career researchers get ready to head back to campus, their impactful research and unique perspectives will live on with the contributions made to a variety of buildings projects.
Aug. 22, 2022
R&D World magazine today presented NREL with one of its annual R&D 100 Awards for research innovations. The Standard Energy Efficiency Data (SEED) Platform, developed in collaboration with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, is a data management and analysis tool that helps cities improve their building stock and reduce carbon emissions.
Aug. 22, 2022
In 2019, Washington, D.C., started using the Standard Energy Efficiency Data (SEED) Platform, a web-based software created by NREL and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to manage data from large groups of buildings and help cities reduce the energy consumption and carbon emissions of their building stock.
Aug. 16, 2022
Whaling season had just begun when the housing survey team from NREL's Cold Climate Housing Research Center (CCHRC) showed up in Point Lay this spring.
Aug. 9, 2022
State and local zoning laws and ordinances influence how and where wind and solar energy projects can be sited and deployed—which can have a measurable impact on U.S. renewable energy resource potential.
Aug. 8, 2022
NREL and DFW Airport have committed to working from the ground up at the system level on sustainability, decarbonization, and energy-efficiency overhauls, designing upgrades and implementations that can integrate intelligently across the board.
Aug. 4, 2022
Researchers at NREL ran hundreds of millions of simulations to gauge the contribution buildings make to gross grid value and created a publicly available dataset for others to use.
July 26, 2022
The first sentence...
July 20, 2022
Johney Green, associate laboratory director for Mechanical and Thermal Engineering Sciences at NREL, was appointed Chairman of The National GEM Consortium Board of Directors on July 18, 2022. GEM is a 45-year-old national nonprofit organization whose vision is to make scientific impact through underrepresented minority STEM talent in the United States.
July 18, 2022
Want to design a zero-energy building while still in school? Register now and form a 2023 Design Challenge team to develop sustainable building expertise and tackle real-world problems through the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon® collegiate competition.
July 15, 2022
NREL has been selected to receive over $5.4 million from the U.S. Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) for the development of technologies that can transform buildings into carbon storage structures.
July 15, 2022
From sustainable fuels to airport infrastructure analysis to next-gen aircraft, NREL offers solutions for lowering emissions in a sector that is among the most difficult to decarbonize.
July 7, 2022
Last month, the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon was honored with the Malcolm Lewis IMPACT! Award during the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) Live conference.
June 7, 2022
In our world where windowless buildings rarely exist, the subtle significance of windows can easily be lost. Today, windows are responsible for about 10% of energy use in buildings and influence end uses that comprise 40% of building energy use.
June 6, 2022
At the DOE Solar Decathlon 2022 Competition Event, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm announced the launch of two Solar Decathlon workforce development programs to bring the collegiate competition's sustainable buildings expertise, experience, and mentorship into high school classrooms and architectural studios across the country.
May 31, 2022
NREL provides technical support to the residential construction industry through its Subject Matter Experts (SME) program.
May 25, 2022
Martin Keller, director of NREL, said he expects the Flatirons Campus near Boulder, Colorado, will reach net zero emissions annually by the end of fiscal year 2023 and the South Table Mountain Campus outside Golden, Colorado, to hit that achievement three years later.
May 4, 2022
DOE announced the winners of the 20th annual Solar Decathlon, DOE's longest-tenured student competition that has challenged 40,000 students across the world to use the latest technologies to design and build the most sustainable buildings possible.
April 14, 2022
Already a pioneer in applied building simulations, NREL expanded its partnerships to the city level, utilizing its ResStock™ tool and place-based data to help develop a roadmap for residential energy efficiency in Chicago through the Chicago Advanced Building Construction project.
April 14, 2022
NREL customizes competitions for DOE technology offices—solar, water, buildings, geothermal, and others—to meet industry needs. American-Made is a pillar of DOE's activities, incentivizing U.S. entrepreneurs to strengthen American leadership in energy innovation and domestic manufacturing.
April 5, 2022
2022 marks the 20th anniversary of the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon, an international collegiate competition that has helped popularize renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies, while training the clean energy workforce of tomorrow.
March 14, 2022
Greenhouse gas emissions from air conditioners are expected to climb as economic growth drives efforts to control both temperature and humidity, according to an analysis by scientists from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Xerox PARC.
March 4, 2022
Fifty-five teams representing 38 universities are advancing as finalists in the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2022 Design Challenge.
Feb. 16, 2022
The Indian Health Service (IHS) serves 2.6 million American Indians and Alaska Natives annually on a mission to raise physical, mental, and spiritual health. One of the biggest hurdles is staffing.
Feb. 16, 2022
A new report from Blokable, the Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN2), and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) details actionable pathways to developing and building net zero energy (NZE) housing without increasing costs yet still reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. IN2 is managed by NREL's Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center.
Feb. 8, 2022
The JUMP into STEM Final Event—held virtually Jan. 27 and 28, 2022—showcased holistic solutions from student teams covering three challenge areas: equal access to indoor air quality, resilience for all, and accelerated market adoption.
Feb. 3, 2022
After more than a decade of leading innovative building research and mentoring dozens of young scientists, Roderick Jackson is being honored with a Black Engineer of the Year Award (BEYA) at the 36th annual BEYA STEM Conference, Feb. 17-19, 2022, in Washington, D.C. He is the first BEYA recipient from NREL.
Feb. 2, 2022
REopt, a free, techno-economic decision support model, helps users optimize energy systems for buildings, campuses, communities, and microgrids. Once called REopt Lite, the REopt tool is dropping the "Lite" in 2022 to better reflect its true status as a heavy-hitting and comprehensive optimization tool.
Jan. 18, 2022
The REopt® web tool is a techno-economic decision support platform used by researchers to optimize energy systems for buildings, campuses, communities, microgrids, and more, helping users determine the optimal size and combination of energy systems to maximize cost savings while meeting resilience or energy performance goals.
Jan. 5, 2022
Buildings account for more than 40% of U.S. energy use and 70% of U.S. electricity use. Reducing that consumption and "shaping" it to match renewable generation requires us to design and operate buildings to be more efficient, flexible, and responsive. To do that, we must be able to better predict and model building energy use.
