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.
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.
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.
Understanding the risk of compound energy droughts—times when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow—will help grid planners understand where energy storage is needed most.
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.
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 led one of five Pathway Summer School programs nationwide, with a specific focus on engaging students from Native American or Indigenous backgrounds.
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.
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.
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.
