One of the best ways to determine whether a school is using energy efficiently is to compare its performance to that of similar buildings—a process known as benchmarking. However, school districts rarely have the time, the data, or the expertise to do that kind of analysis. Analyzing energy ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-20

To better understand the problem of mold occurrence, the California Energy Commission sponsored an investigation, led by the Gas Technology Institute, into the causes of moisture intrusion. This research consisted of laboratory and field studies of structures that are designed to keep building materials ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-35

Cool roofs cut cooling loads by up to 20 percent through the use of reflective materials that limit solar heat gain. A conventional cool roof features light-colored surfaces—shades that commercial facilities with flat or low-sloped roofs find acceptable. However, homeowners have not adopted ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-15

Houses are complex systems of interacting components that don’t always perform properly. Even when built or retrofitted using formal design procedures, houses often fail to meet health, safety, comfort, and energy-use expectations. A major reason for this generally poor performance is the lack of ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-6

Small packaged heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems are among the most common HVAC systems for small commercial buildings. These systems, however, are notorious for a host of problems requiring 25 to 35 percent more energy than is necessary to heat, cool, and ventilate California ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-2

Skylights equipped with photosensors and lighting controls can cut energy use in commercial buildings by reducing the use of electric lighting whenever sufficient daylight is present. But this technology is seldom implemented, because designers and architects don’t have the information they ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-3

Daylighting systems, which use natural lighting to supplement electric lighting, have the potential to cut energy use, reduce peak demand, and create a more desirable indoor environment, yet these systems often fail to live up to their potential. One reason they fail is that they are sensitive to ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-18

Researchers have developed a new module for EnergyPlus™ software, a whole-building simulation software tool that designers can use to calculate the energy use of underfloor air distribution systems and compare their performance to conventional overhead air distribution systems.

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-27

This Brief describes Green Building Studio, a web-based service that enables building design teams to integrate whole-building energy analysis into the early stages of the design process.

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-13

A building’s performance is sensitive to the amount of outside air that is brought inside—too little results in poor indoor air quality, and too much results in wasted energy used to condition the excess air. However, it is difficult and costly to measure ventilation airflows, especially at outdoor-air ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-21

Demand-controlled ventilation (DCV) systems save energy by using building occupancy indicators that usually measure CO2 levels to regulate the amount of outside air that is drawn in for ventilation. But DCV systems are not widely used, because their cost-effectiveness has not been clearly defined, ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-11

The food and beverage industry uses a great deal of energy, costing plants in the U.S. an average of $643,000 per year, mostly for heating and cooling. These plants typically use gas-fired water heaters or boilers to produce hot water and electrically driven mechanical refrigeration systems for cooling. ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-28

Monitoring-based commissioning (MBCx) is a program approach that combines permanent building-energy-system monitoring with standard retrocommissioning practices to provide substantial, persistent energy savings. It’s based on the ability of permanent monitoring systems to increase the effectiveness ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-39

The practices of commissioning new buildings and retrocommissioning existing facilities offer the potential to significantly reduce energy use and improve the building environment. However, commissioning is not widely practiced because building owners have had no sources that explain the benefits ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-26

Houses are complex systems of interacting components that don’t always perform properly. Even when built or retrofitted using formal design procedures, houses often fail to meet health, safety, comfort, and energy-use expectations. A major reason for this generally poor performance is the lack of ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-6

Small packaged heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems are among the most common HVAC systems for small commercial buildings. These systems, however, are notorious for a host of problems requiring 25 to 35 percent more energy than is necessary to heat, cool, and ventilate California ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-2

Skylights equipped with photosensors and lighting controls can cut energy use in commercial buildings by reducing the use of electric lighting whenever sufficient daylight is present. But this technology is seldom implemented, because designers and architects don’t have the information they ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-3

The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory led a demonstration project that showed that alternative, direct-current (DC)–based power distribution systems can reduce the total system energy use in a data center by 5 to 7 percent compared to the most efficient alternating current (AC) systems and by ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-40

Daylighting systems, which use natural lighting to supplement electric lighting, have the potential to cut energy use, reduce peak demand, and create a more desirable indoor environment, yet these systems often fail to live up to their potential. One reason they fail is that they are sensitive to ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-18

Researchers have developed a new module for EnergyPlus™ software, a whole-building simulation software tool that designers can use to calculate the energy use of underfloor air distribution systems and compare their performance to conventional overhead air distribution systems.

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-27

This Brief describes Green Building Studio, a web-based service that enables building design teams to integrate whole-building energy analysis into the early stages of the design process.

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-13

Though tools and methods are available for the design of energy-efficient HVAC systems, they are not often used when it comes to production homes. That’s partly because builders of production homes are unaware that these tools exist. In addition, the existing design methodologies are often hard ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-22

Many large commercial buildings use variable air volume (VAV) systems to deliver the proper amount of chilled air throughout a building. VAV systems can be very efficient at full load, but large buildings typically spend most of their time operating at part load. At part load, VAV systems often operate ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-19

Kitchen ventilation systems represent one of the largest uses of energy in a commercial food service facility, accounting for up to 75 percent of the HVAC load. This load itself accounts for about 30 percent of a restaurant’s total energy consumption. Yet many kitchen ventilation systems are poorly ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-14

Demand-controlled ventilation (DCV) systems save energy by using building occupancy indicators that usually measure CO2 levels to regulate the amount of outside air that is drawn in for ventilation. But DCV systems are not widely used, because their cost-effectiveness has not been clearly defined, ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-11

Small packaged heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems are among the most common HVAC systems for small commercial buildings. These systems, however, are notorious for a host of problems requiring 25 to 35 percent more energy than is necessary to heat, cool, and ventilate California ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-2

Skylights equipped with photosensors and lighting controls can cut energy use in commercial buildings by reducing the use of electric lighting whenever sufficient daylight is present. But this technology is seldom implemented, because designers and architects don’t have the information they ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-3

A new technology that reduces ventilation rates during slow periods makes it possible for restaurants and institutions to significantly reduce the amount of wasted energy. Lower fan speeds also means less noise. The concept calls for control of kitchen ventilation-fan speed based on the amount of ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-42

Automated demand-response (AutoDR) systems use Internet-based electricity pricing and demand-response signals to initiate preprogrammed control strategies that provide fully automated management of building energy use. When electricity prices are high or when the grid is nearing full capacity, these ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-31

To better understand the problem of mold occurrence, the California Energy Commission sponsored an investigation, led by the Gas Technology Institute, into the causes of moisture intrusion. This research consisted of laboratory and field studies of structures that are designed to keep building materials ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-35

A new technology that reduces ventilation rates during slow periods makes it possible for restaurants and institutions to significantly reduce the amount of wasted energy. Lower fan speeds also means less noise. The concept calls for control of kitchen ventilation-fan speed based on the amount of ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-42

A new control strategy called SAV with InCITe™ can provide substantial energy savings by optimizing a variable-air-volume (VAV) system's fan speed and airflow. Static-pressure adjustment from volume flow SAV increases the efficiency of VAV air handling units by reducing duct pressure at part-load ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-34

Researchers have developed a new module for EnergyPlus™ software, a whole-building simulation software tool that designers can use to calculate the energy use of underfloor air distribution systems and compare their performance to conventional overhead air distribution systems.

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-27

Thermal displacement ventilation (TDV) addresses problems with classroom ventilation by delivering cool air directly to the occupants of a space. The fresh air is supplied near the floor at a very low velocity, where it falls toward the floor and spreads across the room. As the air picks up heat from ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-29

Evaporative coolers in residential applications save energy compared with conventional vapor-compression air conditioners. However, traditional evaporative units must move large quantities of air to achieve adequate cooling. Moving all that air generates a lot of noise and leads to the need to directly ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-12

Researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory developed specifications for an improved heat pump air-conditioning system that provides a SEER performance of 13 and eliminates the noise and ventilation problems associated with the SEER 10 systems that are currently used in relocatable classrooms. ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-30

New home construction in California adds significantly to peak loads, in part because it's common practice to install conventional air conditioning in new homes, even in mild climates. This Tech Brief describes how the NightBreeze system, which integrates heating, ventilation, cooling, and air conditioning, ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-4

A building’s performance is sensitive to the amount of outside air that is brought inside—too little results in poor indoor air quality, and too much results in wasted energy used to condition the excess air. However, it is difficult and costly to measure ventilation airflows, especially at outdoor-air ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-21

Though tools and methods are available for the design of energy-efficient HVAC systems, they are not often used when it comes to production homes. That’s partly because builders of production homes are unaware that these tools exist. In addition, the existing design methodologies are often hard ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-22

Many large commercial buildings use variable air volume (VAV) systems to deliver the proper amount of chilled air throughout a building. VAV systems can be very efficient at full load, but large buildings typically spend most of their time operating at part load. At part load, VAV systems often operate ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-19

The ductwork that distributes conditioned air throughout many large commercial buildings is often leaky, letting air out through cracks and gaps and increasing the energy consumption of supply- and return-air fans. Efforts to address this problem have been hampered by the lack of an accurate way to ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-17

Kitchen ventilation systems represent one of the largest uses of energy in a commercial food service facility, accounting for up to 75 percent of the HVAC load. This load itself accounts for about 30 percent of a restaurant’s total energy consumption. Yet many kitchen ventilation systems are poorly ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-14

Conventional hydronic radiant floor (HRF) heating systems offer significant comfort and efficiency benefits to homeowners, but they carry high installation and component costs. Also, homes with HRF heating usually require a forced-air system at an additional cost. Combine these issues with homebuilder ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-16

Evaporative coolers in residential applications save energy compared with conventional vapor-compression air conditioners. However, traditional evaporative units must move large quantities of air to achieve adequate cooling. Moving all that air generates a lot of noise and leads to the need to directly ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-12

Demand-controlled ventilation (DCV) systems save energy by using building occupancy indicators that usually measure CO2 levels to regulate the amount of outside air that is drawn in for ventilation. But DCV systems are not widely used, because their cost-effectiveness has not been clearly defined, ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-11

The rooftop air conditioners used extensively for small commercial and institutional buildings are often poorly maintained. Faults that are introduced during installation or that develop over time can go undetected for long periods, resulting in high energy costs, shortened equipment life, catastrophic ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-10

Air handlers, which move conditioned air throughout a building to keep occupants comfortable, often don’t work as designed. Building operators, faced with the challenge of keeping these systems running well, and providers of commissioning services, charged with verifying system performance, have ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-8

Houses are complex systems of interacting components that don’t always perform properly. Even when built or retrofitted using formal design procedures, houses often fail to meet health, safety, comfort, and energy-use expectations. A major reason for this generally poor performance is the lack of ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-6

Small packaged heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems are among the most common HVAC systems for small commercial buildings. These systems, however, are notorious for a host of problems requiring 25 to 35 percent more energy than is necessary to heat, cool, and ventilate California ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-2

A new control strategy called SAV with InCITe™ can provide substantial energy savings by optimizing a variable-air-volume (VAV) system's fan speed and airflow. Static-pressure adjustment from volume flow SAV increases the efficiency of VAV air handling units by reducing duct pressure at part-load ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-34

Automated demand-response (AutoDR) systems use Internet-based electricity pricing and demand-response signals to initiate preprogrammed control strategies that provide fully automated management of building energy use. When electricity prices are high or when the grid is nearing full capacity, these ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-31

An innovative wireless lighting control, monitoring, and management system developed by Adura Technologies is easy to install, cost-effective, and can provide significant energy savings. It eliminates the costly and time-consuming installation of control wiring and can be easily installed by facilities ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-38

A desk lamp has been developed to provide individually controllable uplighting and downlighting. The designs incorporate improved optics and features that will enable low-cost manufacturing. The California Lighting Technology Center worked with Full Spectrum Solutions to develop the products. Full ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-43

A hybrid fixture featuring light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and either an incandescent lamp or a compact fluorescent lamp (CFL), and integrated with an occupancy sensor, addresses both energy and security concerns. The design features a low-wattage, high-brightness LED that runs continuously during the ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-37

Researchers at the California Lighting Technology Center (CLTC) at the University of California at Davis developed a new approach to daylighting called the Simplified Daylight Harvesting system (SDH) that is easy to install and provides automatic and continuous calibration. The system uses photosensor ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-36

Daylighting systems, which use natural lighting to supplement electric lighting, have the potential to cut energy use, reduce peak demand, and create a more desirable indoor environment, yet these systems often fail to live up to their potential. One reason they fail is that they are sensitive to ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-18

Typical classroom lighting is expensive to operate and does not meet the functional needs of teachers or students. The modern classroom requires a range of lighting scenarios, from full lighting for traditional teaching to various levels of dimming and light distribution for audiovisual presentations ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-1

A two-pronged system known as an “integrated office lighting system” (IOLS) has been developed for better workplace lighting. It combines lower levels of ambient overhead lighting with an efficient personal lighting system. The lower overhead lighting levels—achieved in retrofit applications ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-33

Wall-pack luminaires with high-pressure sodium (HPS) lamps are commonly used to provide outdoor illumination for all types of buildings and many parking lots, yet they are among the least-efficient fixtures made and provide poor glare control. The standard design approach makes a trade-off between ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-25

Lights in the bathrooms of hotels, senior living centers, and nursing homes are frequently left on for extended periods—either due to forgetfulness or deliberately so that they can serve as night-lights. The night-light function is especially critical in senior housing, where tripping and falling ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-24

The use of downlights in the residential market is increasing, yet energy-efficient compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) downlights have not been widely accepted or adopted by residential builders and homeowners. That’s because residential CFL downlights are costly, difficult to install, and not widely ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-5

Many exterior entry and walkway lights in residential and commercial locations use incandescent lamps, because they are small and inexpensive. However, these lights tend to burn all night long, and their inefficiency leads to high energy use. The lights also burn out quickly, which compromises security ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-9

Skylights equipped with photosensors and lighting controls can cut energy use in commercial buildings by reducing the use of electric lighting whenever sufficient daylight is present. But this technology is seldom implemented, because designers and architects don’t have the information they ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-3

An innovative wireless lighting control, monitoring, and management system developed by Adura Technologies is easy to install, cost-effective, and can provide significant energy savings. It eliminates the costly and time-consuming installation of control wiring and can be easily installed by facilities ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-38

Automated demand-response (AutoDR) systems use Internet-based electricity pricing and demand-response signals to initiate preprogrammed control strategies that provide fully automated management of building energy use. When electricity prices are high or when the grid is nearing full capacity, these ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-31

An innovative wireless lighting control, monitoring, and management system developed by Adura Technologies is easy to install, cost-effective, and can provide significant energy savings. It eliminates the costly and time-consuming installation of control wiring and can be easily installed by facilities ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-38

To better understand the problem of mold occurrence, the California Energy Commission sponsored an investigation, led by the Gas Technology Institute, into the causes of moisture intrusion. This research consisted of laboratory and field studies of structures that are designed to keep building materials ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-35

On behalf of the California Energy Commission, researchers from Ecos Consulting, EPRI Solutions, and RLW Analytics have performed field measurements to document the use patterns, energy consumption, and load profiles for electronic devices in homes. This study, which included 50 California homes, ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-32

Ecos Consulting and EPRI Solutions (the Electric Power Research Institute) formed a team of researchers to come up with candidate efficiency standards for battery chargers. The first step was to create an efficiency-testing procedure that all stakeholders can agree on. The project team consulted extensively ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-44

Researchers from Ecos Consulting and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) worked with industry leaders and other stakeholders to develop test procedures and measure the efficiency of a sampling of internal power supplies used in today's electronic products. The researchers also presented their ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-41

Most office equipment and consumer electronic devices use external power supplies to convert high-voltage alternating current into the low-voltage direct current that they need to operate. The majority of these power supplies are far less efficient than they could be—their efficiency is on the ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-23

The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory led a demonstration project that showed that alternative, direct-current (DC)–based power distribution systems can reduce the total system energy use in a data center by 5 to 7 percent compared to the most efficient alternating current (AC) systems and by ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-40

A detailed study characterized the efficiencies of various types of uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs) for data centers under a variety of operating conditions, proposed an efficiency label for UPSs, and estimated the current energy use of the existing stock of UPSs and the potential savings if ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-45

On behalf of the California Energy Commission, researchers from Ecos Consulting, EPRI Solutions, and RLW Analytics have performed field measurements to document the use patterns, energy consumption, and load profiles for electronic devices in homes. This study, which included 50 California homes, ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-32

Ecos Consulting and EPRI Solutions (the Electric Power Research Institute) formed a team of researchers to come up with candidate efficiency standards for battery chargers. The first step was to create an efficiency-testing procedure that all stakeholders can agree on. The project team consulted extensively ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-44

Researchers from Ecos Consulting and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) worked with industry leaders and other stakeholders to develop test procedures and measure the efficiency of a sampling of internal power supplies used in today's electronic products. The researchers also presented their ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-41

The food and beverage industry uses a great deal of energy, costing plants in the U.S. an average of $643,000 per year, mostly for heating and cooling. These plants typically use gas-fired water heaters or boilers to produce hot water and electrically driven mechanical refrigeration systems for cooling. ...

Content type: Tech Brief  |  Document ID: CEC-TB-28