PI: Tianzhen Hong, LBNL (thong@lbl.gov) Partner: Lucid Design Group, Oakland, CA
April 18, 2018
minute read time
PI: Tianzhen Hong, LBNL (thong@lbl.gov)
Partner: Lucid Design Group, Oakland, CA
Budget: $150,000
Project Website: http://cbespro.lbl.gov/
Related Projects: Lucid SBV, Building Performance Database
Project Summary
Small-to-medium-sized commercial buildings (SMB) account for half of U.S. commercial stock, representing a significant opportunity to reduce energy consumption through proper retrofitting. However, investment in retrofitting is hugely untapped because of the perceived risk of retrofit costs and fragmented decision-making process. Funded by the California Energy Commission’s (CEC) Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) program, LBNL’s Commercial Building Energy Saver Pro (CBES Pro) is a web-based analysis platform addressing such gaps by providing quick and actionable recommendations on energy retrofit of SMB. CBES Pro provides energy benchmarking and retrofit analysis to evaluate energy savings of 75 user-configurable energy conservation measures (ECMs) using the OpenStudio SDK and EnergyPlus. CBES Pro targets a broad audience including building owners, operators, facility managers, energy managers, auditors, and consultants.
Through DOE’s Small Business Voucher (SBV) Program, LBNL supported the Lucid Design Group (LDG) in developing BenchmarkMyBuilding for energy benchmarking using the ENERGY STAR® Portfolio Manager and Building Performance Database APIs. LBNL also helped Lucid design and test a preliminary integration of CBES Pro’s retrofit analysis feature into its commercial BuildingOS service.
In this project, LBNL will extend CBES Pro according to recommendations made by the Lucid team and 2030 Districts city partners. LBNL will extend CBES Pro to cover large commercial buildings including offices, hotels, hospitals, and schools. LBNL will also add a feature that allows users to optimize retrofit recommendations based on specified investment criteria.
Project Impact
CBES Pro streamlines the retrofit analysis process and reduces related costs. CBES Pro will have significant benefits if adopted in the commercial building retrofit market: an incremental 0.05 Quad of energy savings annually (assuming 16.5 Quad of the current existing commercial building market size, an average retrofit energy savings of 30%, and an increased retrofit rate of 1%).