Michael Wetter
Dr. Michael Wetter is a Senior Scientist in the Building Technology and Urban Systems Division of LBNL. His research includes integrating building performance simulation tools into the research process, as well as their use for design and operation. He is leading the development of the Modelica Buildings Library, the largest Modelica library for building energy and control systems, of Spawn of EnergyPlus, a next-generation simulation engine for building and district energy systems, and of OpenBuildingControl, a project that digitizes the control delivery process. He has also been developing the Building Controls Virtual Test Bed software for co-simulation and model-based operation, co-simulation tools based on the Functional Mockup Interface standard and the GenOpt optimization program.
He was the co-operating agent of IBPSA Project 1 and was co-operating agent of IEA EBC Annex 60, two multinational collaborations that develop new generation computational tools for buildings and community energy systems between 2013 and 2022. He is now chairing IBPSA's Modelica Working Group, an international group that develops the open-source Modelica IBPSA Library.
He is a recipient of the bi-annual Distinguished Achievements in Building Simulation Award of IBPSA-USA and of the bi-annual Outstanding Young Contributor Award. He is the Chair of IBPSA’s College of Fellows, an IBPSA Fellow, and a member of the Board of the Modelica North America Users’ Group.
Education
Awards
Spot: David Blum, Michael Wetter - November 1st 2023
Publication of three highly impactful journal articles on BOPTEST, the Modelica Buildings Library and the Building Controls Virtual Test Bed.
Spot: Michael Wetter - March 15th 2022
Developed the lab wide Engineering Classification and guidelines for the Engineer career path, promotion and hire process.
IBPSA-USA 2020 Award for Distinguished Achievement in Building Simulation - September 23rd 2020
The IBPSA-USA Award for Distinguished Achievement in Building Simulation award recognizes an individual who has a distinguished record of contributions to the field of building performance simulation, over a period of 15 or more years.
Best Paper Award at the 2014 IBPSA-Germany Conference - September 23rd 2014
Marco Bonvini, Michael Wetter and Thierry Nouidui from the Simulation Research Group obtained the best paper award for their contribution "A Modelica package for building-to-electrical grid integration" at the IBPSA-Germany conference. The paper was selected among 93 peer-reviewed submissions. It presents an open-source free library in the Modelica language that contains models for different types of sources, loads, storage equipment, and transmission lines for electric power. The models can be used to represent DC, AC one-phase, and AC-three phases balanced and unbalanced systems. The models have been successfully validated against the IEEE four nodes test feeder. An example shows how the models can be used to study the integration and control of renewable energy sources in a electric distribution grid.
Most Cited Papers, Journal of Building Performance Simulation - September 18th 2013
The Department of Energy-funded scientific paper "Co-simulation of building energy and control systems with the Building Controls Virtual Test Bed," authored by Michael Wetter, which appeared in the Journal of Building Performance Simulation, Vol. 4(3), 2011, was in 2012 the journal's most cited paper. Over the past three years, another DOE-funded publication "Modelica-based modelling and simulation to support research and development in building energy and control systems," also authored by Michael Wetter, is the second most cited article. It appeared in Vol. 2(2), 2009.