News

The China Energy Group took home a prestigious R&D 100 Award for its innovative Benchmarking and Energy Saving Tool for Low-Carbon Cities (BEST Cities), which provides software for low-carbon planning that users can easily install and run. Berkeley Lab also won awards for technologies that help determine how solar energy affects the grid; understand the functions of genes in microbes under... Read more

The International Energy Studies Group recently announced the release of a new Berkeley Lab study that will improve the energy efficiency of room air conditioners. "Assessment of commercially available energy-efficient room air conditioners including models with low global warming potential (GWP) refrigerants" reviews improvement of energy efficiency of room air conditioners (RACs) while... Read more

The International Energy Studies Group is pleased to announce the release of Berkeley Lab’s new study: Energy Efficiency Roadmap for Uganda, Making Energy Efficiency Count.The Energy Efficiency Roadmap for Uganda is a response to the important role that electrical energy efficiency can play in meeting Uganda’s energy development goals. The report shows that implementing energy efficiency in... Read more

The utility-scale solar sector has led the overall U.S. solar market in terms of installed capacity since 2012. In 2016, the utility-scale sector installed more than 2.5 times as much new capacity as did the residential and commercial sectors combined, and is expected to maintain its dominant position for at least another five years. This report—the fifth edition in an ongoing annual... Read more

Lynn Price has been awarded the 2017 Champion of Energy Efficiency in Industry Award by the American Council for Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). The Champion award recognizes outstanding achievement and leadership in the field of industrial energy efficiency. Lynn is being honored for her passion for energy efficiency, including many and substantial accomplishments and she is being recognized... Read more

Wind energy pricing for land-based, utility-scale projects remains attractive to utility and commercial purchasers, according to an annual report released by the U.S. Department of Energy and prepared by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). Prices offered by newly built wind projects in the United States are averaging around 2¢/kWh, driven lower by technology advancements and... Read more

The New York Times recently featured a report by ETA's Nihar Shah, which reviews the regulatory frameworks, energy efficiency standards, and labeling programs in 18 countries that account for roughly 65% of global AC demand. Shah previously found that improvements could roughly double the 89.7 gigatons of expected emissions savings from switching refrigerant alone.... Read more

ETA's Lynn Price (left), senior scientist, retired from Berkeley Lab on June 29 and has stepped down as acting division director of the Energy Analysis and Environmental Impacts (EAEI) Division as well as department head of the International Energy Analysis Department in the Energy Technologies Area. Tom Kirchstetter, staff scientist, head of the Sustainable Energy and Environmental Systems... Read more

India is pushing hard to electrify its automobile market, aiming to sell only electric vehicles (EVs) by 2030. But what impact will that shift have on the country’s utilities and the grid? A new report by scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has found that the prospective EV expansion will deliver economic benefits, help integrate renewable energy, and significantly... Read more

Panagopoulos received a $35,000 scholarship from the Sweden-America Foundation to support his work at the Lab and in collaborations with Swedish scientists. The research focuses on human exposure to chemicals from artificial turf in sports arenas. The Foundation supports the exchange of science between Sweden, the U.S. and Canada.... Read more

Scientist Peter Therkelson organized a recent visit by the Association of Energy Service Providers (AESP) to the Energy Technologies Area at Berkeley Lab.AESP leaders Patsy Dugger from CB& and Karen Maos from Navigant also facilitated the visit.Seven LBNL speakers gave presentations, and the group enjoyed FLEXLAB® tours.Approximately 25 attendees from AESP, representing 15 organizations, were... Read more

As solar energy’s popularity continues to grow among homeowners, it’s changing the way people buy and sell homes. Because solar has been found to consistently add value to homes, real estate agents need a new way to fairly value solar homes and make sure house hunters can easily find key solar system information. New data standards from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will enable... Read more

As solar energy's popularity continues to grow among homeowners, it's changing the way people buy and sell homes. Because solar has been found to consistently add value to homes, real estate agents need a new way to fairly value solar homes and make sure house hunters can easily find key solar system information. New data standards from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will enable thousands... Read more

Over 100 scholars from more than 50 different universities and institutions recently gathered at UC Berkeley for the fourth annual Chinese Environmental Scholars Forum, an event supported by the Lab’s Environmental & Earth Sciences Area (EESA) and the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center for Water Energy Technologies.Read the full story at eesa.lbl.gov/forum-china-environment/.... Read more

Google Street View cars with pollution sensors are mapping pollution in Oakland, block by block, joining another assortment of low-cost sensors monitoring a wider array of gases and particles from the roofs of schools, museums, and hospitals in the Bay Area. The latter effort, led by ETA's Ronald Cohen, is called BEACO2N (BErkeley Atmospheric CO2 Observation Network).Read the full story at Wired... Read more

Two projects on residential buildings will help state meet targets for low-energy buildings.California has established ambitious goals to reduce energy consumption in buildings, including a policy goal for all new residential buildings to be zero net energy (ZNE) by 2020. Now the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has launched two projects to help the state... Read more

Two projects on residential buildings will help state meet targets for low-energy buildings.California has established ambitious goals to reduce energy consumption in buildings, including a policy goal for all new residential buildings to be zero net energy (ZNE) by 2020. Now the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has launched two projects to help the... Read more

Alex Bayen, the director of UC Berkeley’s Institute of Transportation Studies and a researcher in the Lab’s Energy Technologies Area, was recently featured in a news segment titled “Driving apps like Waze are creating new traffic problems” for Crosscurrents, an award-winning daily news magazine from KALW Public Radio.Read More... Read more

The Rocky Mountain Institute released an “Insight Brief” on how to scale home energy financing projects that cites a Berkeley Lab report, “Current Practices in Efficiency Financing: An Overview for State and Local Governments,” by ETA’s Greg Leventis and others. The Rocky Mountain Institute is an independent, non-partisan nonprofit that drives the efficient and restorative use of... Read more

To meet skyrocketing demand for electricity, African countries may have to triple their energy output by 2030. While hydropower and fossil fuel power plants are favored approaches in some quarters, a new assessment by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has found that wind and solar can be economically and environmentally competitive options and can... Read more

It's late February, which means farmers in Central and Southern California are busy harvesting thousands of acres of citrus and winter vegetables crops. Or at least they're trying to. Monster storms have delayed harvests and damaged crops, resulting in losses of California crops that typically bring in 4 billion dollars annually. Recent policies on food waste reduction tend to focus on the waste... Read more

In 2015, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and UC Berkeley announced a partnership with Tsinghua University in Beijing. They formed the Berkeley Tsinghua Joint Research Center on Energy and Climate Change, a center helping to develop scientifically based clean energy solutions and the next generation of leaders to champion those solutions.Today, that effort received welcome... Read more

Emissions of methane—a potent climate-warming gas⎯may be roughly twice as high as officially estimated for the San Francisco Bay Area. Most of the emissions come from biological sources, such as landfills, but natural gas leakage is also an important source, according to a new study from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).The report by EAEI... Read more

India has announced a target of increasing the total renewable energy (RE) installed capacity from about 34GW in 2015 to 175GW by 2022 (including 100GW solar and 60GW wind capacity). This study assesses the technical feasibility of integrating 175 GW of renewables capacity in the Indian electricity grid, ascertains its impact on power sector investments and operations, and quantifies the... Read more

Many residential and commercial buildings leak air like sieves, wasting up to 40% of their heating and cooling energy. The primary reason for this energy loss is gaps and holes that exist in buildings’ air ducts. Getting an airtight seal on every connection can be difficult; even with skillful installation and generous applications of mastic (the putty used to seal joints), leakage still occurs.... Read more