Research Software

Berkeley Lab contributes to the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Multizone Airflow and Contaminant Transport Analysis Software (CONTAM), a whole-building airflow and pollutant transport tool. CONTAM couples a multizone network airflow model to a well-mixed pollutant transport model to predict the transport and fate of airborne materials. It includes deposition, filtration, source terms, and other transport models. The intended audience is a broad range of users, scientists, and regulators.

For more information: https://www.nist.gov/services-resources/software/contam

The Distributed Energy Resources Customer Adoption Model (DER-CAM) is a powerful and comprehensive decision support tool that primarily serves the purpose of finding optimal distributed energy resource (DER) investments in the context of either buildings or multi-energy microgrids.

For more information: https://gridintegration.lbl.gov/der-cam/

The Building Efficiency Targeting Tool for Energy Retrofits (BETTER) is a software toolkit that enables building operators to quickly and easily identify the most cost-saving energy efficiency measures in buildings and portfolios using readily available building and energy data.

For more information: https://better.lbl.gov

The Biositing Tool is a geospatial tool for assessing potential sites for build-out of chemical, fuel, and electricity production. It generates detailed reports on proximity to key infrastructure, access to feedstocks, and local permitting/regulatory information relevant to industrial facilities. It also provides access to downloads for the underlying datasets. 

For more information: biositing.jbei.org

A California-specific tool developed as part of the BioCirV project supported by Schmidt Sciences for evaluating the availability of biomass feedstocks, including agricultural residues and industrial food processor residues around any given site across the state. Feedstocks can be filtered based on composition and seasonal availability. 

For more information: calbioscape.org 

A powerful, data-driven platform designed to support informed site selection for controlled environment agriculture (CEA). Integrates environmental, social, and infrastructure data with a flexible, facility-specific model of energy use, water consumption, and emissions intensity, offering a comprehensive framework for evaluating site feasibility. 

For more information: https://www.ceasitescout.org/ 

eProject Builder enables Energy Services Companies (ESCOs) and their contracting agencies to upload and track project-level information; generate basic project reports required by local, state, and/or federal agencies; and benchmark new Energy Savings Performance Contract (ESPC) projects against historical data.

For more information: https://eprojectbuilder.lbl.gov/login 

Project PISCES includes a database for industrial process flowsheets stored in a Standard Flowsheet Format (SFF) and an agentic AI-based tool for extracting data from literature to reconstruct industrial process flowsheets. 

For more information: projectpisces.org

DSP Designer is an automated design and technoeconomic analysis tool for downstream separation of products produced biologically from microbes or extracted from plants. 

For more information: dspdesigner.lbl.gov 

Electric transmission system operators (ISOs, RTOs, or utilities) require proposed power plants seeking to connect to the transmission grid to undergo a series of impact studies before they can be built. This process establishes what new transmission equipment or upgrades may be needed before a project can connect to the system and assigns the costs of that equipment. The lists of projects in this process are known as “interconnection queues”.  This research project includes, among other things, interactive data visualizations and maps.

For more information: https://emp.lbl.gov/queues 

The FINancial impacts of Distributed Energy Resources (FINDER) Model is used to quantify the impacts of EE, DR, and/or DG on utility shareholders (reported as earnings and ROE impacts) and utility customers (reported as customer bills and rates). Can also assess the resource costs and benefits of various portfolios of EE, DR, and/or DG.

The FINDER is available through Department of Energy (DOE)-funded state technical assistance programs. 

For more information: https://emp.lbl.gov/projects/finder-model

The Interruption Cost Estimate (ICE) Calculator tool is designed for electric reliability planners at utilities, government organizations or other entities that are interested in estimating interruption costs and/or the benefits associated with reliability improvements in the United States.

For more information: https://icecalculator.com/

FRONTIER is a web-based energy resilience investment decision tool specifically designed for island(ed) communities. It features an easy-to-use platform to visualize natural threat scenarios, and a benefit-Cost analysis tool complemented with other societal metrics.

For more information: https://frontier.lbl.gov/login

The Resource Planning Portal is a web-based tool that allows users to: input electric utility planning information in a consistent format; benchmark planning assumptions across jurisdictions; and output results in a standardized format for deeper analysis.

For more information: http://resourceplanning.lbl.gov/

The Medium and Heavy-Duty Electric Vehicle Infrastructure – Load Operations and Deployment  (HEVI-LOAD) Model is a ground-breaking decision-support tool to help planning agencies and electric utilities understand the charging infrastructure needs and charging load profiles of electric medium- and heavy-duty trucks, thereby minimizing investment risk and maximizing operational reliability.

For more information: https://transportation.lbl.gov/hevi-load

The Behavior, Energy, Autonomy, and Mobility (BEAM) model is an open-source agent-based regional transportation model that overcomes the limitations of conventional transportation models.

For more information: https://transportation.lbl.gov/beam

BEAM CORE integrates BEAM, an agent-based transportation system model, with other models that simulate land-use, vehicle purchase and use by households, market penetration of new vehicle technologies, freight and goods delivery, and energy use and emissions, to estimate impacts across a regional transportation system.

For more information: https://transportation.lbl.gov/beam