Buildings News
Explore our archive of buildings news stories.
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buildings research.
Dec. 28, 2021
NREL researchers and staff reached countless goals and achieved numerous successes in science, partnerships, and technology commercialization in 2021. Here are just a few of the highlights.
Dec. 28, 2021
DOE is accelerating emerging technologies from lab to market through its Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF). With an overarching goal to increase the number of commercialized energy technologies developed at national laboratories, the TCF Program awarded funding to support two NREL Buildings projects.
Dec. 14, 2021
A new report and online dashboard by NREL is the first comprehensive characterization and segmentation of the U.S. building stock, providing a national typology of buildings.
Dec. 10, 2021
The nationwide building science student competition awards teams addressing energy and environmental justice in a competitive field.
Nov. 19, 2021
Commercial buildings generate 16% of all U.S. carbon dioxide emissions.
Nov. 5, 2021
Like many others, Luigi Gentile Polese was drawn to NREL by its mission and values. With a passion for energy and the environment, this innovator did not see an ambiguous job posting as a deterrent.
Nov. 2, 2021
Incorporating energy efficiency measures can reduce the amount of storage needed to power the nation's buildings entirely with renewable energy, according to analysis conducted by researchers at NREL.
Nov. 1, 2021
The Basalt Vista community, nestled high in the mountains in Basalt, Colorado, is about to get a whole lot smarter in the pursuit of energy efficiency and renewable energy integration.
Oct. 28, 2021
The data set released by NREL researchers, in collaboration with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory, is critical for utility planners, regulators, state energy offices, researchers, and building owners to understand ways to best manage energy use.
Oct. 27, 2021
A new study from NREL compares load profiles from potential EV charging stations against those of big-box retail grocery stores to assess how the electricity demands of specific sites may change by adding EV charging.
Oct. 22, 2021
A true living laboratory, NREL added a small but noticeable splash of color to its cafeteria building. Five quantum dot windows were installed this summer as a demonstration project evaluating innovative windows technologies, in collaboration with UbiQD and the Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator program.
Oct. 19, 2021
NREL has historically worked on buildings' energy efficiency, which lowers operational energy costs—electricity and natural gas usage, for example. Now, it is expanding on some of its net-zero buildings experience to look more closely at construction processes, advanced materials, and novel business practices related to energy equity.
Oct. 19, 2021
NREL is partnering with the USDA-Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) to design, build, and evaluate energy use models to increase energy efficiency in broiler houses.
Oct. 15, 2021
Buildings are used every day by almost all members of U.S. society, which is why diversity in building science professionals is critical to better understanding the needs of all building occupants.
Aug. 27, 2021
The American-Made E-ROBOT Prize Phase 1 winners are transforming existing U.S. homes and buildings with a sweeping portfolio of advanced robotics innovations.
Aug. 18, 2021
NREL researchers are developing strategies to prevent construction from gobbling up resources with BREX—shorthand for Building Materials' Reduce, Reuse, and Recycling.
Aug. 4, 2021
NREL's 2021 class of GEM fellows is the largest in the laboratory's history with the program.
July 29, 2021
This year, NREL joined the Department of Energy's Energy Storage Grand Challenge (ESGC) in celebrating just a few of the women making significant contributions within energy storage programs.
July 26, 2021
In November 2020, multinational powerhouse Emerson acquired a startup company, 7AC. It was a big deal in the world of cleantech startups—a fairy-tale ending for a startup company whose technology had made it to the HVAC commercial market.
July 22, 2021
2020 JUMP into STEM Final Event competition winners Megan Bush, Zoe Landers, and Vedyun Mishra are supporting impactful research, exploring their passions, and contributing new perspectives to the NREL Building Technologies and Science Center.
July 14, 2021
NREL researchers have crafted a guide to using federal energy performance contracting to transform U.S. General Services Administration buildings into tomorrow's energy-efficient, grid-interactive facilities.
June 16, 2021
In June 2020, NREL expanded from its sunny campus in the foothills of Golden, Colorado, to the frozen tundra of Fairbanks, Alaska, by adding the Cold Climate Housing Research Center to its team. The inaugural year saw several notable collaborations, including a project to create affordable prefabricated housing, advice on improvements to military housing, and construction of demonstration homes in marginalized communities.
April 21, 2021
NREL will bring cross-cutting technical assistance to remote and island communities seeking resilient energy solutions as part of the DOE-funded, multi-lab, multi-partner Energy Transitions Initiative Partnership Project (ETIPP).
March 16, 2021
The new architecture for the cells increases the area exposed to the sun by putting the metal contact layers side by side on the back of the cell.
March 9, 2021
The air-source heat pump that Tom Marsik installed in his house eight years ago was rare for Alaska. Air-source heat pumps take heat from the outside air, run it through a refrigeration cycle to step up the temperature (just like your fridge, but in reverse), and deliver it to a building.
Feb. 17, 2021
The JUMP into STEM management team designed the Jan. 28–29, 2021, virtual competition to replicate the experiences of an on-site competition. The first day helped create a community experience by providing students the opportunity to learn from and network with building science professionals and fellow students.
Feb. 16, 2021
The future of buildings is affordable, comfortable, and energy efficient. However, the current reality is that buildings consume 39% of all U.S. energy and 74% of all U.S. electricity at an annual cost of more than $400 billion.
Feb. 11, 2021
Scientists from NREL have developed a simple way to better evaluate the potential of novel materials to store or release heat on demand in your home, office, or other building in a way that more efficiently manages the building's energy use.
Jan. 5, 2021
It had been almost 30 years since Jack Hébert visited his old home site in Northern Alaska's Brooks Range. In that time, Jack had become an award-winning home builder and founded the Cold Climate Housing Research Center to come up with more sustainable ways to build. Today, he is a senior advisor at NREL.
