PNNL has developed a decision tool that provides contractors and installers with the information they need to properly select and install cold climate heat pumps, which are a key technology for achieving decarbonization.
The Grid Storage Launchpad dedication event was attended by leaders in grid and transportation energy storage, battery innovation, and industry stakeholders working to transform America’s energy system.
PNNL will engage with transmission planners and other regional partners through technical assistance and listening sessions with the goal of exploring opportunities to integrate equity into transmission planning.
Researchers are planning for an electric grid that deploys machine learning to think ahead, plan for the worst, anticipate demand, and meet consumer needs safely and securely.
PNNL and collaborators developed new models—recently approved by the U.S. Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC)—to help utilities understand how new grid-forming inverter technology will enhance grid stability.
Andrew White goes back to his alma mater, Georgia Tech, as young alumni keynote speaker for the Sustainability Showcase, part of the university’s larger Sustainable Development Goals Action & Awareness Week.
At the second Grid Resilience to Extreme Events Summit, a diverse range of experts gathered to tackle the biggest challenges in building a resilient grid.
Tennessee State University received Department of Energy funding to establish an academy focused on preparing students and professionals to work in an emerging field: clean energy systems. PNNL is helping with that effort and others.
Researchers at PNNL devised a new workflow for integrating life cycle analysis into building design, aided by a computational method that adapts existing software to net-zero energy, carbon-negative homes.
GUV can reduce transmission of airborne disease while reducing energy use and carbon emissions. But fulfilling that promise depends on having accurate and verifiable performance data.
IEEE Power and Energy Society Task Force Focused on Equity and Energy Justice, led by PNNL staff member Bethel Tarekegne, guides important changes in energy policy and regulation.
Researchers from PNNL have been assessing installation and use of electric heat pumps in an Alaskan community that relies on fuel oil for heat. The resulting information could advance electrification in cold rural areas across the nation.
ChatGrid™ is a practical application of the Department of Energy’s exascale computing efforts and offers a new experience in easy, intuitive, and interactive data interaction.
PNNL helps deliver efficiency-related rules and requirements that steadily improve performance of America’s buildings, saving energy and costs and reducing carbon emissions.
Mandy Mahoney, director of the DOE Building Technologies Office, visited PNNL in late November. One key agenda item involved meeting with staff for a discussion of effective equity and justice integration in buildings-related research.
From air-sealing windows and checking for leaky ducts to insulating the attic, PNNL researchers offer tips on how to keep a home warm in winter weather.
Battery energy storage systems are being proposed in municipalities across the U.S. PNNL researchers can help community planners guide safe siting and operations.
A larger HVAC workforce with training on modern heat pump technology will be pivotal to achieving the mass-scale electrification of household HVAC systems needed to meet building decarbonization goals.
Leaders from the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy visited PNNL October 19–20 for a firsthand look at capabilities and research progress.
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Launch Point CDC, Inc. are developing a framework to empower disadvantaged communities with clean energy technology—along with a set of resources to give other community organizations a head start.
Floating offshore wind farms could potentially triple the Pacific Northwest's wind power capacity while offsetting billions of dollars in costs for utilities, ratepayers, insurance companies, and others.
PNNL’s Andrea Mengual co-chaired a working group that produced Building Performance Standards: A Technical Resource Guide. PNNL’s Kim Cheslak, Bing Liu, and Jian Zhang contributed to the effort.
PNNL is at the midpoint of a study focused on the installation of electric heat pump water heaters in New Orleans homes. The efficient water heaters offer a unique capability that could help speed the transition from fossil fuels.
The Distributed Wind Market Report provides market statistics and analysis, along with insights into market trends and characteristics of wind technologies used as distributed energy resources.
The PNNL-managed Building America Solution Center translates research into actionable considerations for homeowners and builders to provide two solutions in one: increasing energy efficiency while also enhancing disaster resistance.
A PNNL team’s analysis of new-housing data concludes that single-family homes in lower-income counties are less energy-code-compliant than in higher-income counties, a finding that could shape strategies for enhanced code adoption.
The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers has given its 2022 Journal Paper Award to Jamie Kono, a PNNL building research engineer.
PNNL’s extensive portfolio of buildings-grid research included three projects that helped answer some of the technical questions related to leveraging energy consumption in buildings to enhance grid operations.
The Northwest Connected Communities Summit brought together representatives of five Department of Energy-funded Connected Communities Projects to share ideas and discuss potential collaboration opportunities.
A new policy database containing energy equity-related actions could serve as a useful starting point for state policymakers and stakeholders who want to enact similar energy equity measures or adapt policies to their local circumstances.
Report for the Oregon Public Utility Commission highlights innovations and best practices for resilience and utility planning could be helpful to other states as well.
A new sodium battery technology shows promise for helping integrate renewable energy into the electric grid. The battery uses Earth-abundant raw materials such as aluminum and sodium.
Zhenyu (Henry) Huang acts as guest editor in an upcoming special issue on “Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation in Power and Energy Systems." The special edition is published by Elsevier.
Staff at PNNL recently completed a report highlighting commercial products enabled through projects funded by the Department of Energy’s Building Technologies Office.
The Simple Building Calculator, developed at PNNL, meets a need for a quick, interactive, and economic method to evaluate energy use—and potential savings from efficiency measures—in simple commercial buildings.
Five staff members from PNNL received awards from the Department of Energy’s Federal Energy Management Program for contributions to projects for the U.S. Army.
PNNL gathered researchers from eight national laboratories plus the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to share ideas and build synergy at the Energy Equity and Environmental Justice Summit.
An evaluation of models and prediction tools for distributed wind turbines has unearthed data that can help potential users make the most informed decisions on upfront investments.
The Department of Energy has issued updated energy conservation standards for manufactured homes. The effort to establish the standards, supported by PNNL, is expected to result in a range of benefits for the manufactured housing sector.
A new version of the Department of Energy’s Technical Resilience Navigator allows users to prioritize resilience solutions based on both risk reduction and emissions impact.
PNNL’s Ján Drgoňa and Draguna Vrabie are part of an international team that authored a most-cited paper on Model Predictive Control, an approach for improving operations, energy efficiency, and comfort in buildings.
PNNL’s Reid Hart and Bing Liu have earned individual Champions of Energy Efficiency in Buildings awards from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.
PNNL worked with the Department of Energy on the Commercial Packaged Boiler rule, which will help reduce energy use, enhance the environment, and save dollars.
PNNL wind energy experts have published the Distributed Wind Market Report: 2022 Edition, supplying key findings that can help businesses, communities, and homeowners make informed decisions.
A paper from PNNL and Southern California Edison describing new methodologies for assessing electric vehicle impacts to the grid was selected as a best paper by IEEE.
PNNL researchers developed a new model to help power system operators and planners better evaluate how grid-forming, inverter-based resources could affect the system stability.
PNNL will demonstrate how new technologies, innovative approaches and partnering with others can lead to net-zero emissions and decarbonization of operations.
A new control system shows promise in making millions of homes contributors to improved power grid operations, reaping cost and environmental benefits.
Lighting control data are critical for optimizing the design and operation of future lighting systems for the benefit of occupants and energy efficiency.
Next generation triple-pane windows provide builders with lower cost options and help homeowners conserve energy, reduce noise, and lower home energy bills.
Four research staff from PNNL are part of an international team that earned top honors for a journal paper focused on a new algorithm-evaluation approach for buildings.
PNNL will provide technical resources and support to a national coalition of states and cities focused on implementing building performance standards to improve energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions.
Sam Rosenberg, a data research scientist in the Energy and Environment Directorate at PNNL, has been appointed voting member of the Regional Technical Forum for the Northwest Power Conservation Council.
A new PNNL study quantifies hydropower's contribution to grid stability. When other power sources go out, hydropower can ramp up, recoup shortfalls, and stabilize the grid nearly instantaneously.
PNNL researchers develop software that uses geographical data to build a free, open-source grid reference system to provide a precise system to locate structures.
Two PNNL studies that describe the potential value of offshore wind off the Oregon Coast and distributed wind in Alaska were published in the journal Energies.
PNNL scientists partnered with colleagues at the University of Akron to create a new molecule that could substantially improve the electrochemical stability of redox flow batteries.
The Energy Storage for Social Equity Initiative will help up to 15 disadvantaged communities consider energy storage technologies to meet local energy goals.
With an eye on renewable, accessible, and resilient power, PNNL researchers show hyper-local microgrids are a viable option, if designed with the right mix of sources.
New building energy codes could reduce utility bills by $138 billion and prevent 900 million metric tons of CO2 emissions coming from buildings. Now, they will be easier to adopt.
Royer’s research has focused on ensuring that energy efficient lighting technologies, like LEDs, offer quality light so they reach their potential for energy savings.
PNNL will play a key role in advancing Connected Communities made up of efficient homes and buildings that communicate with the grid to produce energy and environmental benefits.
Researchers at PNNL examined heat pump water heater (HPWH) operation in Pacific Northwest residences, gaining insights into HPWH electricity use patterns. Part of the study captured trends during a COVID-19 stay-at-home order.
Grid Forward, an industry association dedicated to promoting and accelerating innovation in the regional electric system, honored PNNL's Carl Imhoff with the 2021 Grid Innovator Award.
PNNL’s energy-efficient dehumidifier may reduce energy consumption by up to 50% in residential A/C systems and increase the range of electric vehicles by up to 75%. The system has been licensed to Montana Technologies.
The first customized resource of its kind, H-BEST analyzes the indoor environmental quality profile for buildings and helps its users identify the costs and benefits of improvements.
PNNL’s Supriya Goel has been named by Consulting-Specifying Engineer as one of 2021’s 40 outstanding nonresidential building industry professionals age 40 or younger.
PNNL has released the first version of ExaGO, an open-source grid modeling software that can take advantage of emerging heterogeneous computing architecture to help grid operators plan ahead for extreme events.
PNNL and four other national laboratories executed the Hydropower Value Study to examine hydropower operations in different regions of the United States.
Vigorous and rapid air exchanges might not always be a good thing when it comes to levels of coronavirus particles in a multiroom building, according to a new modeling study.
A new study projects that electricity demand tied to cooling U.S. buildings will grow as peak temperatures rise, and so too would the need for an expanded power sector.
PNNL researchers Leo Fifield, Mike Larche, and Bishnu Bhattarai were recently elected to the board of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Richland, Washington section.
Tools being developed at PNNL are helping the nation plan for, respond to and recover from severe storms and wildfires that could threaten critical energy systems.
PNNL is piloting a novel web-based resilience planning tool for managing risk to mission-critical infrastructure from disruptions in energy and water services.
New facility that will accelerate energy storage innovation and make the nation’s power grid more resilient, secure and flexible has been given the green light to proceed by the U.S. Department of Energy.
PNNL provided expert analysis and technical background for some of the most ambitious building energy efficiency codes proposed for this year's International Energy Conservation Code updates.
PNNL created an assessment method and maturity model that helps manufacturers building products for the power grid implement consistent cybersecurity best practices throughout their development lifecycle.
Buildings account for around 40 percent of our nation's energy use and consume 75 percent of our nation’s electricity each year. Energy use is also one of the biggest costs for facility owners.
PNNL has published a report that sets the foundation for modeling gaps and technical challenges in optimizing hydropower operations for both energy production and water management.
PNNL researchers say that offshore wind energy can add value to the electric grid, beyond just the power it can produce, if locations and strategies are optimized.
PNNL’s longstanding grid and buildings capabilities are driving two projects that test transactive energy concepts on a grand scale and lay the groundwork for a more efficient U.S. energy system.
Water and energy researchers are invited to join a new task force as a way to collaborate broadly on the intersection of the two topics. The task force is part of IEEE's Power and Energy Society and was launched by PNNL and UU researchers.
PNNL is one of the collaborating partners on a new grid-scale solar and energy storage installation near the PNNL campus in a project led by Energy Northwest.
PNNL’s new Smart Power Grid Simulator, or Smart-PGSim, combines high-performance computing and artificial intelligence to optimize power grid simulations without sacrificing accuracy.
PNNL researchers developed two web-based tools to assess and mitigate cyberthreats to utilities—inside and outside their firewalls. Both are low cost and can be used by control room operators who are not cybersecurity experts.
PNNL researchers established an Internet of Things Common Operating Environment (IoTCOE) laboratory to explore the risks associated with IoT connectivity to the internet, the energy grid and other critical infrastructures.
The Facility Cybersecurity toolkit, developed by PNNL, is designed for federal facilities to help implement the presidential executive order on cybersecurity, but it is also available for commercial facilities without charge.
PNNL has earned “Best Paper” at an international resilience conference for research on hydropower’s capabilities and constraints in the event of extreme events, like hurricanes and rolling blackouts.
The PNNL-developed VOLTTRON™ software platform’s advancement has benefited from a community-driven approach. The technology has been used in buildings nationwide, including most recently on a university campus.
Making sure there’s enough electricity at the lowest price is a critical endeavor undertaken daily by electricity market operators. Now, there’s an approach that provides more timely and accurate information to make day-ahead decisions.
PNNL mechanical engineer Stephanie Johnson has been recognized by DOE’s Advanced Manufacturing Office for making a significant impact in energy-efficiency research.
PNNL engineer Srinivas Katipamula was recognized by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy with a 2020 Champion of Energy Efficiency Award.
Four researchers from PNNL were recently honored for contributing to two U.S. Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy initiatives that support the blue economy and building-grid integration.
PNNL lighting experts partnered with the city of Chicago to help identify the best street lighting technology and field validation approaches to Chicago’s outdoor lighting modernization effort.
A new PNNL report says the western U.S. power system can handle large-scale vehicle electrification up to 24 million vehicles through 2028, but more than that and cities could start feeling the squeeze.
Twelve energy-related technologies developed at PNNL have been selected for additional technology maturation funding to help move them from the laboratory and field tests to the marketplace.
PNNL study evaluated "tunable" lighting and its effects on sleep at study in a California nursing home. Tunable refers to the ability to adjust LED light output and the warmth or coolness of the light color.
The Energy and Environmental Building Alliance recently invited PNNL's Theresa Gilbride to a three-year term on its advisory board and join the board’s technical committee.
The Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer has honored three innovations at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
PNNL’s Juliet Homer was an invited panelist at a California Energy Commission workshop, which highlighted research on water treatment, delivery, and energy.
Sonja Glavaski and Kevin Schneider, both electrical engineers at PNNL, have been named as IEEE fellows. IEEE is the world's largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity.
PNNL’s Srinivas Katipamula and Nora Wang have received a Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance award for contributing to the success of Seattle’s Building Tune-Up Accelerator Program.
PNNL will lead three new grid modernization projects funded by the Department of Energy. The projects focus on scalability and usability, networked microgrids, and machine learning for a more resilient, flexible and secure power grid.
