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Mission
The energy consumed by high-tech industries and institutions represents an attractive and often untapped opportunity for energy savings. Characterized by large base-loads operating 24 hours a day with energy intensities much larger than typical commercial buildings, high-tech buildings include laboratories, cleanrooms, and data centers. These facilities are essential to various industries important to the national economy. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory began work in this area in the mid-1990s. Over the ensuing years, LBNL's research and outreach activities—located within the Laboratory's Applications Team—have included benchmarking energy performance, and development of technologies, tools and strategies addressing various aspects of the overall efficiency opportunity for this market. Much has been accomplished, yet further development will enable these buildings to fully reach their energy savings potential. While improving each piece of the efficiency puzzle provides important gains, an integrated approach has the potential for 30-50% improvement.
To better identify and prioritize the many research activities necessary to achieve this goal, LBNL prepared R&D roadmaps for cleanrooms and laboratories as well as for data centers. Using these roadmaps. Sponsors of public sector R&D, such as the California Energy Commission's Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) program are utilizing these roadmaps to prioritize their investments in developing and deploying new technologies and best practices.
As new results are obtained, the project team works actively with professional and technical committees to demonstrate and disseminate the results, along with a host of other technology transfer activities including delivering frequent presentations and trainings, providing free design tools, and issuing technical as well as popular publications. Energy benchmarking is used as a key means of conveying the range of possible efficiency levels and the benefits of best practices.
| Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has been a leader in science and engineering research for more than 70 years. Located on a 200 acre site in the hills above the Berkeley campus of the University of California, overlooking the San Francisco Bay, Berkeley Lab is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Laboratory managed by the University of California. It has an annual budget of nearly $480 million (FY2002) and employs a staff of about 4,300, including more than a thousand students. | The Environmental Energy Technologies Division, established in 1973, and with a staff today of nearly 400, develops technology that uses, converts and stores energy more efficiently and with less environmental impact. In response to evolving national and international concerns, activities range from technology R&D, to development of methods for maximizing the health and productivity of building occupants, to analysis of energy efficiency policies and programs in the United States and internationally. Facilities include laboratories devoted to developing energy-efficient lighting systems, energy-efficient window systems, advanced energy technology (batteries and fuel cells), geographic information systems, the efficient combustion lab, an environmental chamber for the study of indoor pollutants, and a field facility for testing advanced windows and insulators. | The Applications Team transfers new energy-efficient building technologies from the laboratory to the real world, and stimulates the use of underutilized, high-performance technologies through innovative deployment programs. Among its areas of expertise are facilities for high-tech industries. |