P. Torcellini's research while affiliated with National Renewable Energy Laboratory and other places
What is this page?
This page lists the scientific contributions of an author, who either does not have a ResearchGate profile, or has not yet added these contributions to their profile.
It was automatically created by ResearchGate to create a record of this author's body of work. We create such pages to advance our goal of creating and maintaining the most comprehensive scientific repository possible. In doing so, we process publicly available (personal) data relating to the author as a member of the scientific community.
If you're a ResearchGate member, you can follow this page to keep up with this author's work.
If you are this author, and you don't want us to display this page anymore, please let us know.
It was automatically created by ResearchGate to create a record of this author's body of work. We create such pages to advance our goal of creating and maintaining the most comprehensive scientific repository possible. In doing so, we process publicly available (personal) data relating to the author as a member of the scientific community.
If you're a ResearchGate member, you can follow this page to keep up with this author's work.
If you are this author, and you don't want us to display this page anymore, please let us know.
Publications (122)
Domestic hot water heating is responsible for 32% of the total energy consumption in
multifamily buildings and offers a significant decarbonization opportunity. An extensive market assessment was conducted to understand and document key technical and economic barriers to electrification of domestic water heating in multifamily buildings throughout...
The zero energy buildings concept is more than 20 years old, and the paradigm shift from
buildings as energy consumers to buildings as energy producers is underway. Buildings also
consume land and material resources, however, with additional environmental impacts. Another
paradigm is emerging: a built environment that produces energy and is environ...
Energy efficiency advances and renewable energy price reductions are driving a steady increase in the number of zero energy and zero energy ready commercial buildings. These are buildings with energy requirements so small that the loads can be met on an annual basis with on-site renewable energy, typically solar photovoltaics (PV) (DOE, 2015). For...
Driven by energy-efficiency advances and renewable energy cost reductions, zero energy buildings are popping up all around the country. Although zero energy represents a bold paradigm shift-from buildings that consume energy to buildings that produce enough energy to meet their energy needs on an annual basis-it isn't a sudden shift. Zero energy bu...
This technical feasibility study provides documentation and research results supporting a
possible set of strategies to achieve source zero energy K–12 school buildings according to the
definition of a zero energy building (ZEB) by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Under this
definition, a ZEB is “an energy-efficient building where, on a source...
New construction could account for more than 25% of the U.S. energy consumption by 2030. Millions of square feet are built every year that will not perform as expected – despite advancing codes, rating systems, super-efficient technologies, and advanced utility programs. With retrofits of these under-performers decades away, savings potential will...
Building energy consumption can only be measured at the site or at the point of utility interconnection with a building. Often, to evaluate the total energy impact, this site-based energy consumption is translated into source energy, that is, the energy at the point of fuel extraction. Consistent with this approach, the U.S. Department of Energy's...
Last year DOE published a common definition for zero energy buildings (ZEB) with the intent of moving the market in a common direction. As a building type, K-12 schools are ideal candidates to lead a market shift from buildings that consume energy to buildings that can produce as much renewable energy as they consume. The space types, owner procure...
Last year DOE published a common definition for zero energy buildings (ZEB) with the intent of moving the market in a common direction. As a building type, K-12 schools are ideal candidates to lead a market shift from buildings that consume energy to buildings that can produce as much renewable energy as they consume. The space types, owner procure...
Net-zero energy buildings generate as much energy as they consume and are significant in the sustainable future of building design and construction. The role of daylighting (and its simulation) in the design process becomes critical. In this paper we present the process the National Renewable Energy Laboratory embarked on in the procurement, design...
In a perfect world, a building owner tells everyone what sort of building should be built. Talented design and contractor teams come together to design and build it. Twelve months later, the building performs to expectations, and the tenants are all happy. Utility bills match the design energy analysis. Simple, right?.
To have market relevance and gain widespread market adoption, zero energy buildings (ZEBs) will need to be designed and constructed cost-effectively, and preferably without additional costs. An approach was developed to create low-energy buildings without additional construction costs such that it yielded innovation in building technology and integ...
This paper helps owners' efficiency representatives to inform executive management, contract development, and project management staff as to how specifying and applying whole-building absolute energy use targets for new construction or renovation projects can improve the operational energy performance of commercial buildings.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Building Technologies program has set aggressive goals for energy efficiency improvements in buildings that will require collaboration between the DOE laboratories and the building industry. This report details the development of standard or reference energy models for the most common commercial buildings to serv...
The Research Support Facility was designed to use half the energy of an equivalent minimally code-compliant building, and to produce as much renewable energy as it consumes on an annual basis. These energy goals and their substantiation through simulation were explicitly included in the project's fixed firm price design-build contract. The energy m...
This paper documents the design and operational plug and process load energy efficiency measures needed to allow a large scale office building to reach ultra high efficiency building goals. The appendices of this document contain a wealth of documentation pertaining to plug and process load design in the RSF, including a list of equipment was selec...
Contract No. DE-AC36-99-GO10337NOTICE This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States government. Neither the United States government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness,...
Net Zero Energy Building" has become a prominent wording to describe the synergy of energy efficient building and renewable energy utilization to reach a balanced energy budget over a yearly cycle. Taking into account the energy exchange with a grid infrastructure overcomes the limitations of seasonal energy storage on-site. Even though the wording...
This Technical Support Document documents the technical analysis and design guidance for large hospitals to achieve whole-building energy savings of at least 50% over ANSI/ASHRAE/IESNA Standard 90.1-2004 and represents a step toward determining how to provide design guidance for aggressive energy savings targets. This report documents the modeling...
Developers of Standard 189.1—with its provisions for renewable energy, peak load reduction, and other efficiency improvements—were ambitious in setting the bar for energy performance. Their goal: an average 30% increase in site energy efficiency (i.e., a 30% decrease in site energy consumption) in comparison with Standard 90.1-2007. Does Standard 1...
This paper illustrates the challenges of integrating rigorous daylight and electric lighting simulation data with whole-building energy models, and defends the need for such integration to achieve aggressive energy savings. Through a case study example, we examine the ways daylighting -- and daylighting simulation -- drove the design of a large net...
Ongoing work at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory indicates that net-zero energy building (NZEB) status is both achievable and repeatable today. This paper presents a definition framework for classifying NZEBs and a real-life example that demonstrates how a large-scale office building can cost-effectively achieve net-zero energy.
The design of net-zero energy solar buildings (NZESBs) presents a challenge because there is no established design strategy to systematically reach this goal and many of the available building energy tools have limited applicability for such advanced buildings. This paper reviews current design practice and tools for designing NZESBs through a lite...
The idea of a Net Zero Energy Building (Net ZEB) is understood conceptually, as it is understood that the way a Net ZEB is defined affects significantly the way it is designed in order to achieve the goal. However, little agreement exists on a common definition; the term is used commercially without a clear understanding and countries are enacting...
A net-zero energy building (NZEB) is a residential or commercial building with greatly reduced energy needs. In such a building, efficiency gains have been made such that the balance of energy needs can be supplied with renewable energy technologies. Past work has developed a common NZEB definition system, consisting of four well-documented definit...
In the United States, residential and commercial buildings account for 39% of total energy use and 73% of electricity use. About 13% of the primary energy used by buildings is consumed by space cooling, nearly all of which is used to produce electricity (DOE 2009). Evaporative cooling uses significantly less electricity than typical cooling systems...
An overview of the Department of Energy (DOE's) efforts toward realizing cost- effective net zero energy buildings (NZEB) has been reported. Building owners and tenants realize attractive returns on their NZEB investments while reducing carbon footprints. NZEB can be constructed cost effectively, providing productive environments for occupants, red...
The enormous quantity of energy consumed by U.S. commercial buildings places a significant burden on the energy supply and is a potential source of economic strain. To address this, the DOE Building Technologies Program has established the goal of developing market-viable zero energy buildings by 2025. This study focuses on the effects of outside a...
The excitement surrounding the drive to build and renovate commercial buildings to achieve exemplary and even 'net zero performance,' coupled with the realization that complex systems engineering is usually required to achieve such levels, has led to a broader use of computer energy simulations. To provide a consistent baseline of comparison and sa...
The United States has approximately 2,665 square miles (6900 square kilometers) of commercial floor space and is projected to add 1,210 square miles (3130 square kilometers) of new floor space between now and 2030. Lighting, space conditioning and other energy service demands in commercial buildings currently require 35% of the nation’s electricity...
This paper describes the Energy Design Plugin, a new software plugin that aims to integrate simulation as a tool during the earliest phases of the design process. The plugin couples the EnergyPlus whole-building simulation engine to the Google SketchUp™ drawing program. Leveraging the powerful SketchUp application programming interface, we develope...
This report uses EnergyPlus simulations of each building in the 2003 Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) to document and demonstrate bottom-up methods of modeling the entire U.S. commercial buildings sector (EIA 2006). The ability to use a whole-building simulation tool to model the entire sector is of interest because the energy...
This report summarizes the findings from research conducted at NREL to assess the technical potential
for zero-energy building (ZEB) technologies and practices to reduce the impact of commercial buildings
on the U.S. energy system. Commercial buildings currently account for 18% of annual U.S. energy
consumption, and energy use is growing along w...
An energy management system (EMS) is a dedicated computer that can be programmed to control all of a building's energy-related systems, including heating, cooling, ventilation, hot water, interior lighting, exterior lighting, on-site power generation, and mechanized systems for shading devices, window actuators, and double facade elements. Recently...
Het Building Technologies Program van het U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) heeft als doel gesteld om voor 2025 goed in de markt liggende NulEnergie-gebouwen te realiseren. Het principe van een NulEnergie-gebouw is dat de energiebehoefte dusdanig wordt gereduceerd dat met duurzame energie de resterende behoefte kan worden aangevuld. Dit roept onmidde...
Advances in on-site renewable energy technology have brought the concept of zero-energy buildings within reach. Many single-story residential and commercial buildings have enough favorably oriented roof area to make achieving zero energy technically feasible, assuming no major solar obstructions exist and that energy efficiency has been aggressivel...
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Building Technologies Program has set a research goal of making commercial zero-energy buildings (ZEBs) marketable by 2025. In concept, a ZEB has greatly reduced energy loads such that renewable energy can supply the remaining energy needs. This immediately begs some questions: “This is a far stretch from our c...
The U.S. Department of Energy's Building Technologies Program has adopted the goal of making zero-energy commercial buildings (ZEBs) marketable by 2025. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory conducted an assessment of the entire commercial sector to evaluate the technical potential for meeting this goal with technology available in 2005 and proj...
Building energy simulations are often used for trial-and- error evaluation of "what-if" options in building design—a limited search for an optimal solution, or "optimization." Computerized searching has the potential to automate the input and output, evaluate many options, and perform enough simulations to account for the complex interactions among...
A net zero-energy building (ZEB) is a residential or commercial building with greatly reduced energy needs through efficiency gains such that the balance of energy needs can be supplied with renewable technologies. Despite the excitement over the phrase "zero energy," we lack a common definition, or even a common understanding, of what it means. In...
Building energy simulations are often used for trial-and-error evaluation of ''what-if'' options in building design--a limited search for an optimal solution, or ''optimization''. Computerized searching has the potential to automate the input and output, evaluate many options, and perform enough simulations to account for the complex interactions a...
The Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies in Oberlin, Ohio, is a 13,600ft2 (1,263 m2) academic building designed with a long-term goal of operating as a net energy exporter. The building was designed to consume significantly less energy than a typical building. Features to achieve the energy savings include daylighting, enhanced therma...
The energy performance of six high-performance buildings around the United States was monitored and evaluated by the NREL. The six buildings include the Visitor Center at Zion National Park, the NREL Thermal Test Facility, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Merrill Center, the BigHorn Home Improvement Center, the Cambria Office Building, and the Oberl...
This procedure provides a standard method for measuring and characterizing the long-term energy performance of photovoltaic (PV) systems in buildings and the resulting implications to the building's energy use. The performance metrics determined here may be compared against benchmarks for evaluating system performance and verifying that performance...
Tall buildings pose unique challenges for simulation software and modelers. Environmental factors such as air temperature and wind speed change with altitude. The urban environment imposes additional environmental factors because of shading and reflections from surrounding buildings. The large scale of tall buildings can result in excessive input d...
Tall buildings pose unique challenges for simulation software and modelers. Environmental factors such as air temperature and wind speed change with altitude. The urban environment imposes additional environmental factors because of shading and reflections from surrounding buildings. The large scale of tall buildings can result in excessive input d...
Because buildings consume more than 39% of the nation’s primary energy and more than 70% of the total electricity, it is essential that architects and engineers design buildings that use considerably less energy than existing buildings. Some owners and designers have made great strides to significantly change the way
commercial buildings use energy...
The energy performance of six high-performance buildings around the United States was monitored in detail. The six buildings include the Visitor Center at Zion National Park; the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Thermal Test Facility; the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Merrill Center; The BigHorn Home Improvement Center; the Cambria DEP Office B...
The Van Geet home near Denver, Colorado, demonstrates the successful integration of energy conservation measures and renewable energy supply in a beautiful, comfortable, energy- efficient, 295-m2 (3,176-ft2) off-grid home in a cold, sunny climate. Features include a tight envelope, energy-efficient appliances, passive solar heating (direct gain and...
The design of most buildings is typically driven by budget, time, safety, and energy codes, producing buildings that just meet these minimum criteria. To achieve better or even exceptional energy performance in buildings, the design team needs to work with the building owner and others involved in the building process toward a focused energy perfor...
Contract No. DE-AC36-99-GO10337NOTICE The submitted manuscript has been offered by an employee of the Midwest Research Institute (MRI), a contractor of the US Government under Contract No. DE-AC36-99GO10337. Accordingly, the US Government and MRI retain a nonexclusive royalty-free license to publish or reproduce the published form of this contribut...
A U. S. federal agency has developed a public web database to centralize and distribute information about sustainable and high-performance buildings. Available since May 2002, the database contains more than 50 completed case studies with another 50 nearing completion. The database collects information related to a building’s physical attributes, d...
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) created a public database to centralize and distribute information about sustainable and high-performance buildings. Available since May 2002, the database now currently contains 44 complete case studies with another 30 nearing completion. The database collects information related to physical attributes, design p...
Photovoltaics (PV) for buildings system applications are experiencing exponential growth. This increased activity is the result of building owners becoming more confident with this new technology, designers becoming more comfortable incorporating PV into architectural and building electrical designs, decreasing PV system cost, the heightened public...
Photovoltaics (PV) for buildings system applications are experiencing exponential growth. This increased activity is the result of building owners becoming more confident with this new technology, designers becoming more comfortable incorporating PV into architectural and building electrical designs, decreasing PV system cost, the heightened public...
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has created a Web-based directory of building-energy software tools to help guide users to the appropriate tool for the application. This directory contains information on more than 220 tools from around the world. The common theme throughout the directory is providing information for sustainable design, improvin...
This paper presents summary findings from a literature search of the term ''daylighting''-using natural light in a building to offset or replace electric lighting. According to the Department of Energy's Office of Building Technology, State and Community Programs 2000 BTS Core Databook, in 1998, commercial buildings consumed 32% of the total electr...
Minimizing energy consumption in residential buildings using passive solar strategies almost always calls for the efficient use of massive building materials combined with solar gain control and adequate insulation. Using computerized simulation tools to understand the interactions among all the elements facilitates designing low-energy houses. Fin...
Successfully designing, constructing, and operating high-performance buildings requires the building owner and all members of the design team to set goals to minimize energy consumption and environmental impact. The team should establish these goals early in the design process and maintain them through the building occupation. One method for achiev...
This paper presents two US retail building projects that were designed and constructed using the energy design process. These buildings, the BigHorn Center in Silverthorne, Colorado, and the Zion National Park Visitor Center in Springdale, Utah, were both completed and occupied during the spring of 2000.
Designing and constructing low-energy buildings (buildings that consume 50% to 70% less energy than code-compliant buildings) require the design team to follow an energy-design process that considers how the building envelope and systems work together. A design team must set energy efficiency goals at the beginning of the pre-design phase. Detailed...
The Thermal Test Facility (TTF) at the UD Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) was designed and constructed using an energy design process that optimizes the interaction between the building envelope and systems. To successfully realize a low-energy building, the design team made a cost-effective energy minimization on...
Low-energy buildings today improve on passive solar design by incorporating a thermal storage and delivery system called a Trombe wall. Trombe walls were integrated into the envelope of a recently completed Visitor Center at Zion National Park and a site entrance building at the National Wind Technology Center located at the National Renewable Ener...
This procedure is intended to provide a standard method for measuring and characterizing the energy performance of commercial buildings. The procedure determines the energy consumption, electrical energy demand, and on-site energy production in existing commercial buildings of all types. The performance metrics determined here may be compared again...
The Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies at Oberlin College in Ohio is a building that houses classrooms and offices. The building was designed to be an energy-efficient model for commercial design and serve as a teaching aid to students. The long-term vision for the building was to export more energy than it consumes, sometimes refer...
Final report of energy performance analysis and design process for the BigHorn Home Improvement Center in Silverthorne, Colorado.
NREL began work for DOE on this project to standardize the measurement and characterization of building energy performance. NREL's primary research objectives were to determine which performance metrics have greatest value for determining energy performance and to develop standard definitions and methods of measuring and reporting that performance.
This document supports the other measurement procedures and all building energy-monitoring projects by providing methods to calculate the source energy and emissions from the energy measured at the building. Energy and emission factors typically account for the conversion inefficiencies at the power plant and the transmission and distribution losse...
The BigHorn Development Project, located in Silverthorne, Colorado, is one of the nation's first commercial building projects to integrate extensive high-performance design into a retail space. The BigHorn Home Improvement Center, completed in the spring of 2000, is a 42,366-ft2 (3,936 m2) hardware store, warehouse, and lumberyard. The authors were...
This paper will review a procurement, acquisition, and contract process of a large-scale replicable net zero energy (ZEB) office building. The owners developed and implemented an energy performance based design-build process to procure a 220,000 ft2 office building with contractual requirements to meet demand side energy and LEED goals. We will out...
NREL Staff, as part of Sustainable NREL, an initiative to improve the overall energy and environmental performance of the lab, decided to control how its vending machines used energy. The cold-drink vending machines across the lab were analyzed for potential energy savings opportunities. This report gives the monitoring and the analysis of two ener...
This paper describes the development of energy efficiency recommendations for achieving 30% whole-building energy savings in K-12 schools over levels achieved by following the ANSI/ASHRAE/IESNA Standard 90.1. These design recommendations look at building envelope, fenestration, lighting systems (including electrical lights and daylighting), HVAC sy...
This report documents technical analysis for grocery stores aimed at providing design guidance that achieves whole-building energy savings of at least 50% over ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2004.
Final report of energy performance analysis and design process evaluation for the Thermal Test Facility at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
This paper presents a set of 15 best practices for owners, designers, and construction teams of office buildings to reach high performance goals for energy efficiency, while maintaining a competitive budget. They are based on the recent experiences of the owner and design/build team for the Research Support Facility (RSF) on National Renewable Ener...