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Intelligent Environments Laboratory

The University of Texas at Austin
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    • Prof. Zoltan Nagy, PhD
    • June Young Park
    • José Ramón Vázquez-Canteli
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August 4, 2019, Filed Under: Publication

Paper in Nature Energy & Cover

Our paper Dynamic photovoltaic building envelopes for adaptive energy and comfort management has been published in the July edition of Nature Energy.

B. Svetozarevic et al., “Dynamic photovoltaic building envelopes for adaptive energy and comfort management,” Nat. Energy, 2019.

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-019-0424-0

Abstract

Current efforts to improve building envelopes mostly focus on reducing energy demand by static measures such as insulation, selective glazing and shading. The resulting envelopes are limited in adapting to weather conditions or occupants’ needs and leave vast potentials for energy savings, onsite energy generation and improvement of occupant comfort untapped. In this work, we report on a dynamic building envelope that utilizes lightweight modules based on a hybrid hard/soft-material actuator to actively modulate solar radiation for local energy generation, passive heating, shading and daylight penetration. We describe two envelope prototypes and demonstrate autonomous solar tracking in real weather conditions. The dynamic photovoltaic envelope achieves an increase of up to 50% in electricity gains as compared to a static photovoltaic envelope. We assess energy savings potentials for three locations, six construction periods and two building use types. The envelope is most effective in temperate and arid climates, in which, for the cases analyzed, it can provide up to 115% of the net energy demand of an office room.

Research Highlight

UT Energy App – Privacy Policy

  The Intelligent Environments Laboratory is releasing the first version of the UT Energy App. This app is intended to provide a way to Read more 

About Us

The Intelligent Environments Laboratory (IEL), led by Prof. Zoltán Nagy, is an interdisciplinary research group within the Building Energy & Environments (BEE) and Sustainable Systems (SuS) Programs of the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering (CAEE) in the Cockrell School of Engineering of the University of Texas at Austin.

The aim of our research is to rethink the built environment and define Smart Buildings and Cities as spaces that adapt to their occupants and reduce their energy consumption.

We combine data science with building science and apply machine learning to the building and urban scale

Take a look at our projects !

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air handling unit Annex 79 architecture artificial neural network Bluetooth Community engaged research earthquakes environmental monitoring fault detection and diagnostics HVAC integrated design intelligent energy management Lighting Control machine learning Megan McHugh multi-agent systems Occupancy Occupant Centered Control Reinforcement Learning Review Smart Building smart city teaching Thermal Comfort
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UT Energy App – Privacy Policy

Fault detection and diagnostics of air handling units using machine learning and expert rule-sets

Reinforcement Learning in the Built Environment

Reinforcement learning for urban energy systems & demand response

Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning for demand response & building coordination

IEA-EBC Annex 79: Occupant Centric Design and Operation of Buildings

People

  • Prof. Zoltan Nagy, PhD
  • June Young Park
  • José Ramón Vázquez-Canteli
  • Megan K. McHugh, MSE

Tags

air handling unit Annex 79 architecture artificial neural network Bluetooth Community engaged research earthquakes environmental monitoring fault detection and diagnostics HVAC integrated design intelligent energy management Lighting Control machine learning Megan McHugh multi-agent systems Occupancy Occupant Centered Control Reinforcement Learning Review Smart Building smart city teaching Thermal Comfort
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301 E Dean Keeton St
Austin, TX 78712
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nagy@utexas.edu

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