Residential Buildings Research Projects
Our research accelerates the introduction of energy-efficient building technologies and practices into the homebuilding marketplace. Research is conducted in two areas: systems integration and energy analysis. Systems integration research and development seeks to optimize the use of individual components within the context of the entire building as a "building system" rather than focusing on the optimization of individual building components. Feedback from systems research results are then used to target the research and development on individual building components (i.e., building envelope, equipment, appliances) that is required the maximize the contributions of individual components towards achieving our long term energy performance goals. Our research goal aligns with the U.S. Department of Energy's goal to develop zero energy homes by 2020. Our research objectives are to develop integrated energy efficiency and onsite renewable energy power solutions that can be successfully used on a large production scale to reduce whole-house energy use in new homes by 50% in 2015 and by 90% in 2025.
NREL's primary research partner for residential buildings research is the U.S. Department of Energy's Building America Program, which works with some of the nation's most innovative production homebuilders. We are helping the Building America Program to document research results and to develop the case studies required to transform the top 3000 builders in the United States into net-zero energy home providers by the year 2020.
