Planning IUCRC at University of Colorado Boulder: Center for Building Energy Smart Technologies (BEST)

The Center of Building Energy Smart Technologies (BEST-West) is a partnership between University of Colorado and Arizona State University as well as the BEST-East center site at the City College of New York. Through synergetic research and development between industry and academia, BEST center seeks to advance building energy systems to be intelligent and energy efficient. The building sector is responsible for the highest energy end-use in the US, about 40% of total US energy consumption. The center will develop, integrate, and test energy technologies for single buildings and urban districts. These technologies including intelligent building envelope materials and assemblies, advanced HVAC systems, building integrated energy technologies, and renewable energy options, can enhance energy sustainability, occupant's comfort, and overall resiliency of buildings, communities, and urban centers. The center will provide a unique platform to bring different building industries and universities to collaboratively develop and integrate the next generation energy technologies for the built environment. Moreover, the center is committed to train future engineers and scientists to design and operate smart buildings, communities, and urban centers. The BEST center will thus play a crucial role in improving the nation's building infrastructure and energy security.

The BEST center will bring together multi-disciplinary research capabilities of four US universities and partner industries to develop both smart and energy efficient technologies that enhance sustainability and resiliency for individual buildings and urban centers. To cover the rich and diverse building industry needs, the center has five thrust areas to cover (i) smart buildings materials, (ii) intelligent building mechanical and electrical energy systems, (iii) distributed and renewable energy systems, (iv) building energy informatics:, and (v) distributed data sensors and networks for the building energy industry. Research and development for the proposed center will cover fundamental sciences including but not limited to energy and mass transport in building processes, energy conversions, and building materials. The center will also foster technical innovations in renewable energy sources along with advances in building enclosures, fenestration and lighting, to yield tightly integrated, intelligent, adaptive, and highly efficient building energy systems. The center will also develop intelligent and robust inverse modeling algorithms for purposes of holistic fault detection and supervisory control of several building energy systems. Moreover, the center will address pressing energy efficiency issues in new and existing building stocks to enhance their sustainability and resiliency while maintaining indoor comfort and occupant productivity requirements.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.