Lead Performer: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory - Berkeley, CA Partner: Q-Lab Corporation - Westlake, OH
June 16, 2014
minute read time
Berkeley Lab Heat Island Group chemist Mohamad Sleiman prepares to insert clean and soiled roofing specimens into a weatherometer. The weatherometer simulates exposure to heat, moisture, and UV radiation.
Heat Island Group, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
October 31, 2025
Lead Performer: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory - Berkeley, CA
Partner: Q-Lab Corporation - Westlake, OH
DOE Funding: $220,000
Project Term: Complete
Project Objective
This project aims to reduce the time to rate aged materials from three years to a few days, which will speed next-generation cool roofing materials to market. Agreement between lab and field solar reflectance (SR) and thermal emittance (TE) should be within 15%. This project has two tasks planned for fiscal year 2014:
- Complete an inter-laboratory study quantifying the repeatability of the accelerated aging method.
- Complete ASTM standardization of LBNL's accelerated aging method.
Project Impact
LBNL estimates that the adoption of cool roofs in Residential Energy Consumption Survey climate zones 4 and 5 would yield annual net primary energy savings of nearly 207 TBTU, worth about $1.4B/year. Products that soil rapidly can lose a significant fraction of their energy savings (up to 40%). Adoption of new ASTM standards of accelerated aging will benefit about 200 roofing manufacturers and suppliers by promoting rapid prototyping and faster market introduction of new materials with higher aged reflectance. This cost-effective technology can boost annual sales of cool roofs per manufacturer by ~$2-5M, supporting US manufacturing and exports.
Contacts
DOE Technology Manager: Karma Sawyer
Performer: Steve Selkowitz, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory