Tag: modeling

Dr. Sen Huang Participates in the Architectural Engineering Department Distinguished Speaker Seminar

Nathan Kurtz on

We were very excited to welcome lab alumni Dr. Sen Huang (Prof. Zuo’s first Ph.D. student) to speak at the first seminar as part of the Architectural Engineering Department’s 2024-2025 Distinguished Speaker Seminar Series. Dr, Sen Huang is from Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and recipient of the Outstanding Young Contributor Award from IBPSA World and the Emerging Contributor Award from IBPSA-USA chapter.

Dr. Sen presented his research advancements in modeling, sensors, and controls to facilitate connected communities. This was an extremely inspiring presentation to all the students who attended. He also held a student round table to give advice and information regarding career opportunities at national laboratories. We really appreciate him taking the time to come out and present to our students and give valuable insight and guidance. We look forward to future collaborations with Dr. Sen and ORNL.

SBS Lab Team Attends US-Ireland Workshop on Multi-Scale Building Energy Performance Prediction

Nathan Kurtz on

Nearly 30 experts from the US, Republic of Ireland, and Northern Ireland attended the U.S.-Ireland Workshop on Multi-Scale Building Energy Performance Prediction at the University College Dublin. The participants were from a wide variety of backgrounds including government, academia, national laboratories, industries, and non-profit organizations. They discussed the challenges and opportunities in modeling for building energy performance in the three jurisdiction. We are happy to see this workshop be so successful and look forward to the continued collaborations and new collaborations that can come from this.

The workshop was a spin-off of our joint project “U.S.-Ireland R&D Partnership: Intelligent Data Harvesting for Multi-Scale Building Stock Classification and Energy Performance Prediction” with James O’Donnell at University College Dublin and Neil Hewitt at Ulster University. We were glad to have Ph.D. students Rosina Adhikari and Jiyuan Sui as well as undergraduate students Almila Meng and Alex Pan join the workshop. This was a great opportunity for several of our students to learn from the experts. We are extremely grateful to National Science Foundation, Science Foundation Ireland, and Department of Economy NI for sponsoring this research.

Lab Member Saranya Anbarasu Becomes Modelica Buildings Library Developer

Nathan Kurtz on

With the release of Modelica Buildings Library v10.0.0, lab member Saranya Anbarasu became a model developer for the Modelica Buildings Library, an open-source modeling repository for building and district energy systems and controls that is managed by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Congratulations to Saranya for achieving this role! As part of the GED Research Project, Saranya contributed a numerically efficient pressure-reducing valve for steam heating systems. She also made improvements to several steam district heating models for fast and accurate simulation of these large-scale thermofluid systems. We are excited to see all of the contributions she will make continue to make towards the Modelica Buildings Library. To learn more about our lab’s work with the Modelica Buildings Library click here.

Second Technical Advisory Group (TAG) Meeting for GED Project

Julia Ho on
GED

The second TAG meeting for the Grid-Interactive Efficient District (GED) Project took place Monday, Oct. 31st. The multi-year, DOE-funded project’s TAG meetings occur at the beginning of each budget period. Principal investigators gathered to discuss progress and next steps for the project.

The GED project aims to create an open-source platform that makes optimizing energy use in microgrid and district energy systems more accessible. To do this, the project is creating, calibrating, and combining thermal, electrical, and control system models to more accurately predict energy use and potential savings. In addition to creating the novel platform, the researchers are conducting case studies on UT Austin and CU Boulder campuses to validate the platform and demonstrate potential energy savings.