ETA 2021 Strategic Plan - Flipbook - Page 114
Utility and Microgrid
Optimization and Planning Tools
Building and Microgrid
Technology and Performance
Interruption Cost Estimate Calculator (ICE
Calculator): Designed for electric reliability planners at
utilities, government organizations, or other entities that
are interested in estimating interruption costs and/or
the benefits associated with reliability improvements in
the United States.
Building Efficiency Targeting Tool for Energy
Retrofits (BETTER): Winner of an R&D 100 Award
and a Berkeley Lab Director’s Award for Technology
Transfer, BETTER uses minimal computing resources
and data inputs to benchmark a building’s or portfolio’s
energy use against peers; quantify energy, cost, and
greenhouse gas savings potential for investors; and
recommend energy efficiency improvements, targeting
specific energy savings levels.
Distributed Energy Resources Customer Adoption
Model (DER-CAM): A powerful and comprehensive
decision support tool that primarily serves the purpose
of finding optimal distributed energy resource (DER)
investments in the context of either buildings or multienergy microgrids. This widely accepted and extensively
peer-reviewed model has been developed by Berkeley
Lab since 2000, and can be used to find the optimal
portfolio, sizing, placement, and dispatch of a wide
range of DERs, while co-optimizing multiple stacked
value streams that include load shifting, peak shaving,
and power export agreements, or participation in
ancillary service markets.
Integrated Modeling Tool (IMT): A model that
captures the dynamic between consumers’ adoption
of distributed energy resources, distribution grid
planning, and rate design, providing a unique modeling
framework to support utility and regulatory decisions
around electricity rate structures and cost recovery.
Risk-controlled Expansion Planning with Distributed
Resources (REPAIR): A model that is building the
foundational capabilities enabling risk-controlled
decisions in utility grid planning to prevent and mitigate
the impact of outages caused by regular equipment
failures or by high-impact low-probability events, such as
storms, earthquakes, or wildfires that may cause longerterm interruptions of service from the transmission
system.
Distributed Optimal and Predictive Energy Resources
(DOPER) Controller: An open-source model predictive
controller for distributed energy resources. It optimally
coordinates DERs and controllable loads, such as
photovoltaic with smart inverters, battery storage,
electric vehicles, as well as building components such
as lighting and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning
to minimize the total energy cost for the asset owner
and increase building occupant comfort, while providing
additional services to the grid. =
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COMFEN (Commercial Fenestration): A tool to
analyze and optimize façade options for commercial
buildings and capabilities, including evaluation of energy
consumption, daylighting, glare, and thermal comfort.
Demand Response Quick Assessment Tool (DRQAT):
Predicts the energy and demand saving, the economic
saving, and the thermal comfort impacts for various
demand responsive strategies.
International Glazing DataBase and Complex Glazing
DataBase (IGDB/CGDB): Berkeley Lab’s industry
standard comprehensive database for optical properties
of over 5,000 glazing and shading solutions available
worldwide.
MPCpy: A python package that facilitates the testing and
implementation of occupant-integrated model predictive
control for building systems.
Optics: Calculates the optical properties of glazing
systems composed of multiple glazing layers, laminates,
and coatings.
Radiance: Evaluates lighting levels and lighting
quality from daylight and electric light in virtually any
environment.
RESFEN (Residential Fenestration): Helps consumers
and builders pick the most energy-efficient and costeffective window for a given application, for new homes,
additions, or as window replacements by calculating
heating and cooling energy use and associated costs,
as well as peak heating and cooling demand for specific
window products.
