Philadelphia Navy Yard's eatery

From Green Right Now Reports

A team led by Pennsylvania State University will receive up to $122 million over the next five years from the Department of Energy to establish an Energy Innovation Hub focused on developing technologies to make buildings more energy efficient. The Energy Innovation Hub will be located at the Philadelphia Navy Yard Clean Energy campus, and will bring together leading researchers from academia, two U.S. National Laboratories and the private sector in an effort to develop energy-efficient building designs that will save energy, cut pollution, and position the United States as a leader in this industry.

Buildings account for nearly 40 percent of U.S. energy consumption and carbon emissions. U.S. officials said that developing systems to improve building efficiency will provide significant benefits – reducing energy use and bills, cutting pollution, and creating jobs in the building efficiency industry.

“This significant federal funding to establish the Energy Innovation Hub will build on Pennsylvania’s growing reputation as a clean energy leader,” Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell said in a statement. “In addition to helping to protect our environment, investments in clean energy create good-paying jobs. And the great ideas that will come from this groundbreaking energy lab will help to reduce our nation’s reliance on foreign energy sources – representing a win-win for taxpayers.”

The Energy Innovation Hub’s mission will be to research, develop and demonstrate highly efficient building components, systems, and models that are applicable to both retrofitting existing buildings and new construction. The hub team will pursue a research, development and demonstration program targeting technologies for single buildings and district-wide systems.

Technologies that will be explored include computer simulation and design tools to enable integrated project teams of architects, engineers, contractors and building operators to work collaboratively on retrofit, renovation and new building design projects; advanced combined heat and power systems; building-integrated photovoltaic systems for energy generation; advanced HVAC systems with integrated indoor air quality management; and sensor and control networks to monitor building conditions and optimize energy use.

The Energy-Efficient Building Systems Design Hub is one of three projects that will receive funding in FY10. In May, the Energy Department announced that a team led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory will establish a hub focused on modeling and simulation for nuclear reactors. A team led by the California Institute of Technology will establish a hub to develop fuels from sunlight.

The Philadelphia team, led by Dr. Henry C. Foley, will use the Navy Yard campus, which has more than 200 buildings and operates an independent electric microgrid as a “virtual municipality” to test and validate the technologies developed by the RD&D program in real buildings.