Research Themes +
Energy Technologies Area (ETA) researchers are continually building on the strong scientific foundation we have developed over the past 50 years. We address the world’s most pressing climate challenges by bringing to market energy-efficient innovations across the buildings, transportation, and industrial sectors. ETA is at the forefront of developing better batteries for electric vehicles; improving the country's aging electrical grid and innovating distributed energy and storage solutions; developing grid-interactive, efficient buildings; and providing the most comprehensive market and data analysis worldwide for renewable technologies like wind and solar.
Strategic Initiatives +
The Energy Technologies Area (ETA) Strategic Plan is the guiding force for our research and development for the next ten years. It clearly charts a path toward clean-energy solutions and focuses on five detailed Strategic Initiatives. The Plan provides an in-depth look at how ETA is accelerating research to provide affordable, clean energy to all while accomplishing deep, economy-wide decarbonization, looking to avoid a rise in global average temperature while simultaneously developing solutions to increase humanity's resilience to extreme weather volatility.
Publications
News +
For media inquiries,
please contact ETA
Interim Communications Manager
Kiran Julin

kjulin@lbl.gov
About Us +
The Energy Technologies Area (ETA) is unique in translating fundamental scientific discoveries into scalable technology adoption. Our approach combines an understanding of the marketplace and the role of state and federal regulation and policies. ETA's research drives real-world, practical results that affect and improve the everyday lives of Americans and those across the globe. Saving energy and battling the Climate Crisis are key to the foundation of our research, which is driven by technoeconomic analysis and in-lab experimentation and discovery.

“Virtual Design Studio”—Part 2: Introduction to overall and software framework

Publication Type

Journal Article

Date Published

01/2013

Authors

Zhang, Jianshun (Jensen), Michael Pelken, Yixing Chen, Daniel J. Rice, Zhaozhou Meng, Shewangizaw Semahegn, Lixing Gu, Hugh Henderson, Wei Feng, Francesca Ling

DOI

10.1007/s12273-013-0111-1

Abstract

The “Virtual Design Studio (VDS)” is a software platform for integrated, coordinated and optimized design of building energy and environmental systems. It is intended to assist management, architectural and systems design teams throughout the early to detailed building design stages as analyzed in Part 1 (DOI: 10.1007/s12273-013-0110-2). This paper presents an overview of the VDS design and method of software implementation, including system composition, architecture, graphical user interface (GUI), and simulation solver integration. A VDS user workflow is also illustrated with a simplified design example.

Journal

Building Simulation

Volume

Year of Publication

2013

Issue

ISSN

1996-3599

Organization

, International Energy Analysis Department, Energy Analysis and Environmental Impacts Division