EETD Communications

Contact: Allan Chen (510) 486-4210
Technical Contact: Mary Ann Piette (510) 486-6286

Berkeley Lab Researchers Announce OpenADR Specification to Ease Saving Power in Buildings Through Demand Response

New specification will advance development of “Smart Grid”

Berkeley, CA—A new data model developed by researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and their colleagues at other universities  and in the private sector will help facilities and buildings save power through automated demand response technology, and advance the development of the Smart Grid.

The researchers who developed Open ADR (Open Automated Demand Response) are part of the Demand Response Research Center  (DRRC), a center funded by the California Energy Commission’s Public Interest Energy Research Program. The DRRC’s goal is to develop technologies to make it possible for buildings and facilities to adopt demand response as a way of saving peak power use, and reducing stress on the electric grid during times of high energy demand.

“The purpose of this specification is to help building and facilities managers implement automated demand response in their facilities, as well as assist electric utilities to help their commercial and industrial customers participate in power pricing programs that incorporate automated demand response…

“OpenADR also helps manufacturers of building automation equipment design products for Smart Grid implementation, and power aggregators incorporate demand response into their work. OpenADR builds on six years of research in California to develop autoDR technology and demonstrate it in buildings with our utility and commercial  partners,” said Mary Ann Piette, the Deputy Head of the Building Technologies Department, and Research Director of the Demand Response Research Center.

Read more about it here:

http://newscenter.lbl.gov/press-releases/2009/04/27/openadr-specification/

The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Environmental Energy Technologies Division is hiring scientists, research associates, program managers, and post-doctoral fellows to help conduct research in energy-efficient building technologies and policies; the smart electrical grid, energy markets and policy; advanced battery development; and other advanced materials such as window coatings and organic LEDs.

Go to http://cjo.lbl.gov/

Hit the link to “Job search.”

Under Career Path, highlight “All.” Under Division, highlight “Environmental Energy Tech.” Click “Search Jobs.”

Apply!

Aircraft Measured Bay Area, Sacramento Valley Greenhouse Gas Emissions

R&D Collaboration of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, NOAA, UC Davis

Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the University of California recently measured greenhouse gases over California using aircraft to improve estimates of the state’s GHG emissions. The Airborne Greenhouse Gas Emissions Survey (AGES) project is developing methods that are expected to prove important for verifying emissions reductions mandated by California’s assembly bill AB 32.

The flights used a Cessna 210 aircraft equipped with instruments to measure multiple GHG (e.g., CO2, CH4, N2O) species above the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento Valley areas.

The Berkeley Lab effort, led by Marc Fischer of the Lab’s Environmental Energy Technologies Division, is a collaboration with Colm Sweeney, at NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Professor Ian Faloona at UC Davis, and Suman Surapali and Tom Sherwood of Kalscott Engineering in Lawrence, Kansas. The project is partially supported by DOE’s Office of Biological and Environmental Research.

The AGES project builds on tall-tower GHG measurements that are being made by the California Greenhouse Gas Emissions (CALGEM) Project, another Berkeley Lab-NOAA collaboration partially supported by the California Energy Commission’s Public Interest Energy Research Program.

In this project, combining the aircraft sampling and tall-tower measurements from CALGEM , Fischer’s team will refine estimates of GHG emissions such as CO2, CH4, and N2O from Central California energy consumption and agricultural activities.

Editors: If you are interested in talking to Marc Fischer about his research, please set up a time to call or visit by emailing him at MLFischer@lbl.gov

A feature story about CALGEM

http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articleas/Archive/sabl/2007/Apr/02-CALGEM.html

CALGEM:
http://eetd.lbl.gov/env/mlf/CALGEM/

NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/

Scaling Up: From Green Buildings to Green Cities in the U.S. and China

Mark Levine, China Energy Group Leader and former Environmental Energy Technologies Division Director to speak

Buildings consume well over 30 percent of all primary energy in the world, more than either transportation or industry. By building green, we can reduce energy consumption in this key sector by 30 to 50 percent and cut greenhouse gas emissions by similar margins. It is also one of the cheapest ways to do so: green building adds only one to five percent to construction costs, which are recovered through reduced energy demand in a few years or less.

This one-day conference is the first to bring together leading green design specialists from the fields of research, technology, architecture, business, and policy from the U.S. and China to build  a dialogue and collaboration. The U.S. and China are rapidly becoming the global centers for green design promotion, development, and investment, and many other Asian countries are beginning to follow suit.

Mark Levine, leader of EETD’s China Energy Group, will be a speaker at this conference.

Friday, May 1, 2009
8:30 am Registration/Breakfast
9:00 am-5:00 pm Program
PG&E Auditorium
77 Beale St. (between Market and Mission)
San Francisco

More information and conference registration:
http://asiasociety.org/greencities/

EETD’s Mary Ann Piette, Research Director of the Demand Response Research Center, can be heard discussing her research on “Sustainability,” a radio show produced by Purdue’s College of Engineering. It will be heard in the Bay area on April 25 on KQED (88.5 FM) at 1 PM. Piette discusses automated demand response, and making the electric grid smart by providing real-time information on and control over our power use.

For those who want to listen from elsewhere, go to this website:
https://engineering.purdue.edu/EngineeringImpact/Audio

A video of EETD researcher Chris Marnay describing microgrids at Google TechTalks, and the role they might play in the Smart Grid .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XuCJBvq6Sk

This information is posted on our web page at:
http://eetd.lbl.gov/dls/lecture-04-13-09-sperling.html

Environmental Energy Technologies
Distinguished Lecture

Two Billion Cars and What it Means for Climate and Energy Policy
Professor Daniel Sperling, Director of the Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis
Monday, April 13, 2009, Noon
Building 66 Auditorium
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

The world is headed toward two billion vehicles. Is this sustainable? Not without transforming vehicles, fuels, and transportation generally-not only in the U.S., but virtually everywhere. Professor Sperling will examine the roots of the problem: the resistant auto industry, dysfunctional oil markets, shortsighted government policies, and unmotivated consumers. He will focus on the role of innovation and policy in bringing about low carbon fuels, electric-drive vehicles, socially-responsible behavior, enhanced mobility services, and low-carbon cities.

Daniel Sperling is Professor of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science and Policy, founding Director of the Institute of Transportation Studies, interim Director of the Energy Efficiency Center at UC Davis. In February 2007, Governor Schwarzenegger appointed Dr. Sperling to the “automotive” seat on the California Air Resources Board. He is author or editor of 200 papers and reports and 11 books (including “Two Billion Cars” by University Press).

To attend this lecture at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, contact JoAnne Lambert for gate pass arrangements. JMLambert@lbl.gov

Visitor information:
http://www.lbl.gov/visitor-info.html

Here:

http://eetd.lbl.gov/ee/ee-1.html