The world’s most advanced decarbonizedintegrated building and grid technologies testbed
FLEXLAB, Busier Than Ever
2021 has emerged to become FLEXLAB's busiest year ever, despite the COVID-19 pandemic and a brief shutdown in 2020. Our recent testing includes new experiments that relate to aerosol transmission in buildings, and testing to help clean energy entrepreneurs develop their technologies. Read the articles below and check out our website to find out what we’ve been up to.
CalTestBed is a clean energy voucher program that helps entrepreneurs advance their technologies. FLEXLAB has been an instrumental part of the CalTestBed program since before it kicked off in 2020. Berkeley Lab's participation in the program is managed by FLEXLAB's Executive Director and Program Manager, Cindy Regnier and Stacy Curry along with Berkeley Lab Energy Technologies Area Program Development Office Lead, Alecia Ward. FLEXLAB is featured as one of the testbeds in the CalTestBed program and has just finished wrapping up testing for one of the CalTestBed voucher recipients from Cohort 1.
On Dec. 1-2, 2021, CalTestBed will host its annual symposium to showcase voucher recipients and connect them to potential partners in an effort to accelerate the commercialization of their technologies. Look for a third application period in the spring providing cleantech entrepreneurs with access to lab test facilities.
Sponsored by the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science, the Berkeley Lab Energy Analysis & Environmental Impacts Division conducted a series of FLEXLAB experiments to study the drivers of airborne transmission and fate of COVID-19 in buildings. The study findings enabled researchers to provide simple, practical solutions to more effectively circulate air and reduce the risk of virus transmission indoors. The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) produced a podcast to discuss this research with Principal Investigator, Brett Singer, PhD (FLEXLAB is mentioned ~9 min). More information can be found in the Berkeley Lab news article and Indoor Air journal article that also discuss this research.
Transmission & Distribution Hardware-in-the-Loop for Demand Response
In this ARPA-E funded project, researchers set out to enable real-time modeling of transmission and distribution network interactions with controllable devices. The project involved a partnership of four institutions that was led by Northwestern University’s Institute for Sustainability and Energy (ISEN). Find out how FLEXLAB helped the researchers to demonstrate and evaluate a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) system to evaluate demand response (DR).
Integrated Daylight Redirecting & Shading With Luminaire-Level Networked Sensors and Controls
In this California Energy Commission EPIC-funded project, researchers aimed to promote wider adoption of an integrated set of emerging commercial building retrofit technologies. This project was comprised of a partnership between New Buildings Institute (NBI), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), and TRC Companies, Inc. — a global consulting, engineering and construction management firm. Find out how FLEXLAB helped researchers evaluate the energy performance of integrated technologies for the Energy-Efficient Retrofits (INTER) shading and daylighting control system and evaluate the system’s performance in regards to visual and thermal comfort.
