URBANopt Advanced Analytics Platform

Lead Performer: National Renewable Energy Laboratory – Golden, CO
Partners:
-- City of Westminster – CO
-- Comillas University – Madrid, Spain
-- Engie
-- Ladybug Tools LLC – Fairfax, VA
-- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory – Berkeley, CA
-- Skidmore, Owings & Merrill – Chicago, IL
-- University of Colorado Boulder – Boulder, CO
DOE Total Funding: $6,000,000
FY18 DOE Funding: $2,000,000  
Cost Share: TBD
Project Term: October 1, 2018 – September 30, 2021
Funding Type: Lab Call

Project Objective

This multiyear project is focused on the development of the URBANopt advanced analytics platform. Built on top of the U.S. Department of Energy Building Technologies Office’s open-source, physics-based building energy modeling platforms (EnergyPlus, OpenStudio, Spawn-of-EnergyPlus), URBANopt will include new foundational open-source analytical capabilities to help identify a) the most promising technology development pathways for district-scale energy; and b) previously untapped efficiencies through the novel integration of technologies and strategies at the district-scale.

The project is initially focused on three types of district analytical use cases:

• The design of low-energy campuses and districts with advanced analytical capabilities integrated into typical planning workflows for architects and urban planners. This includes developing, enhancing, and publicly releasing the URBANopt SDK as an open-source platform as an underlying, foundational analytical layer that enables private-sector tools and applications.
• The design and optimization of grid-interactive efficient buildings (GEBs) at a district-scale in conjunction with distributed energy resources (DERs) and electric distribution systems. This includes enhancing the platform analytics as well as quantifying the resulting value for building owners/occupants, developers, utilities, and other stakeholders.
• The detailed design and evaluation of next-generation district thermal systems. This includes enhancing URBANopt’s underlying simulation approach using Modelica to properly model next-generation district thermal systems. These systems represent key strategies to tap into energy-savings opportunities related to building load diversity and waste heat recovery. However, these cannot be modeled realistically in EnergyPlus currently due to a variety of limitations.

Each of these analytical use cases is based on real-world questions and foundational analytical needs and gaps that NREL has encountered in district-scale projects. The efforts related to each use case include or will be coordinated with real-world testbed projects leveraging several private-sector partners. These application projects inform new capability development and provide real-world platforms for testing new or enhanced modeling capabilities. 

Project Impact

Districts and campuses present unique opportunities for energy and cost savings in the built environment beyond typical building-by-building approaches for efficiency design and upgrades. Some of these opportunities include next-generation district thermal systems that take advantage of load diversity between buildings and make use of waste heat. Districts and campuses are also ideal scales at which to implement GEB strategies and to deliver enhanced community resiliency to critical infrastructure (e.g., through district-scale microgrids). However, industry is challenged by a lack of foundational analytical capabilities that can a) inform research and technology development for districts, and b) be integrated into typical planning workflows that allow for the timely evaluation of various technology integration scenarios with different combinations of building efficiency/GEB strategies, district thermal systems, and DERs. Furthermore, planners, engineers, and electric utilities are currently challenged to 1) understand the impacts and interactions districts have with the local and bulk electricity distribution systems, and 2) identify opportunities for additional efficiencies and cost savings through the concurrent design, upgrade, and/or optimization of buildings, DERs, and the electricity distribution infrastructure. This project is focused on addressing these critical gaps to help guide technology development and unlock previously untapped energy and cost savings for district- and campus-scale projects.

Contacts

DOE Technology Manager: Sarah Zaleski
Lead Performer: Ben Polly, National Renewable Energy Laboratory