ETA 2021 Strategic Plan - Flipbook - Page 103
FLEXLAB is made up of four stand-alone testbeds
and an occupied plug-load and lighting testbed. Each
of the four stand-alone testbeds is made up of two
600 square foot cells, and one of those testbeds
rotates. A unique capability is that each testbed has
identical cells, allowing side-by-side comparisons
of energy-efficient technologies to a base case that
can match real-world situations, such as an existing
building or energy code condition. FLEXLAB’s
rotating testbed allows users to develop window
and daylighting strategies to manage different solar
and sky conditions and thermal loads as the sun
changes position throughout the course of the day
and year, affecting room temperature and visual
comfort. The rotating testbed allows users to test
under the same thermal loads as every climate
except Alaska’s. Thousands of high-accuracy sensors
installed throughout the facility capture the results,
allowing Berkeley Lab researchers and users to
analyze performance at both the component and
system level. These sensors also help measure
indoor air quality, and thermal and visual comfort
for occupants.
FLEXLAB includes FLEXGRID, a system that studies
controls to manage building demand, onsite
renewables, and storage to address grid issues and
lower costs for building owners. Control strategies
take into account weather, grid conditions, the price
of energy, and possible storage alternatives, such as
a connected electric vehicle’s battery storage.
Since opening in 2014, FLEXLAB has tested
more than 70 energy-efficient technologies and
supported over $65 million in research projects. Our
projects are diverse and have included: evaluating
technologies for a smarter grid that can respond
to fluctuating power demand; validating simulation
tools; and analyzing integrated lighting, shading, and
HVAC packages.
Users have ranged from utilities like Pacific Gas and
Electric Company (which focused on developing
efficiency-incentive programs for customers)
to the biotech firm Genentech (which sought
support of its energy-efficiency decisions for a
new 250,000-square-foot building). FLEXLAB also
supports a wide range of projects for the U.S.
Department of Energy and the California Energy
Commission.
Adaptation and
Resilience
While climate change mitigation
has always been a key focus of
the energy-efficiency research
conducted at FLEXLAB, an
increasing number of projects
are utilizing FLEXLAB’s unique
whole-building and DER systems
capabilities to study approaches
to increase adaptation,
resilience, and reliability. The
rise of renewable energy is
forcing our electric grid to evolve
rapidly, and FLEXLAB’s gridenabled testbed infrastructure
enables users to test strategies
to increase building reliability
and resilience under a range of
simulated and emulated grid
conditions. A wide range of
distributed energy resources
are now available, including onsite photovoltaics and energy
storage with demand flexibility
strategies (such as pre-cooling
building mass). FLEXLAB offers
users a way to evaluate a
combination of these on-site
strategies with automated grid
signals, optimizing energy use
on very rapid time scales. These
capabilities position FLEXLAB
as a unique facility for studying
demand-side strategies and
integrated energy systems
controls to increase resiliency
and achieve energy and
carbon savings.
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