Buildings
Buildings Research

Buildings Research

NREL leads cutting-edge research to drive affordable energy solutions and strengthen the reliability of energy systems for buildings.

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Building Energy Modeling, Analysis, and Data

A leader in building energy modeling, systems analysis, and physics-based datasets, NREL develops, maintains, and distributes a suite of industry-standard, field-validated platforms. Using NREL’s flagship tools and supercomputing capabilities, researchers can analyze various scenarios—scaled up to thousands of buildings, communities, and districts—to advance innovative building technologies and enable affordable, reliable energy solutions. NREL’s suite of tools is also the backbone of other physics-based building energy modeling tools across the U.S. buildings sector.

Building Technologies and Solutions Development

Leveraging world-class facilities and unique energy systems integration capabilities, NREL buildings researchers deliver innovative technologies to support the use of abundant energy sources in the most affordable, efficient ways. NREL’s technology innovation advances HVAC and refrigeration systems, improves indoor air quality, enables smart building controls, increases efficiency of windows, lowers whole-building energy use and costs, and much more.

Validation, Verification, and Integration

NREL’s unique capabilities drive expert analysis and research—both in the lab and in the field—to validate the performance and integration of emerging technologies. This expertise is crucial to the real-world use of cutting-edge technology, from new window technologies to smart breaker panels and commercial building HVAC systems.

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Optimization and Integration of Energy Systems

NREL brings an energy systems lens to building innovation. This unique perspective enhances coordination and system-wide benefits; drives distribution-level solutions to improve investment certainty, reliability, and peak management; and optimizes forecasting, efficiency, and infrastructure costs.