Building Technologies Office Opportunity in Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning

The Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Science, Technology and Policy (STP) Program serves as a next step in the educational and professional development of scientists and engineers by providing opportunities to participate in policy-related projects at DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy in Washington, D.C. Participants will become part of a group of highly-trained scientists and engineers with the education, background, and experience to be part of the workforce that supports the DOE's mission in the future.In 2016, residential and commercial buildings consumed more than 40 percent of the Nation’s total energy and more than 74 percent of the electrical energy, resulting in an estimated annual national energy bill totaling more than $380 billion. Widespread adoption of existing energy-efficiency (EE) building technologies – and the introduction and use of new technologies – could eventually reduce energy use in homes and commercial buildings by 50 percent. This would save almost $200 billion annually on energy bills and help create jobs. Building Technologies Office (BTO)’s mission is to support research and development (R&D), validation, and integration of affordable, energy-saving technologies, strategies, analytical tools, and information services to enable industry and others to deploy these at scale to reduce energy use and cost in both new and existing residential and commercial buildings.

In addition to EE, BTO has several additional co-emphases. An important one is demand-flexibility (DF), a building’s ability to responsively shape its electricity draw at time scales ranging from multiple hours to seconds and even sub-seconds in order to support grid stability, reliability, and the efficient use of a variety of generation resources. Grid-interactive Efficient Buildings (GEB) is a cross-cutting BTO initiative aimed at establishing building-based DF as a key grid asset. Other emerging co-emphases include resilience, embodied energy, thermal energy storage to support DOE's Energy Storage Grand Challenge, EE and DF at the neighborhood scale, and a new focus on technologies and strategies that support the building construction and deep renovation process; the latter is led by the Advanced Building Construction (ABC) initiative.

BTO’s Emerging Technologies (ET) Program aims to enable the development of cost-effective technologies that can reduce building energy use intensity by 45 percent by 2030, relative to 2010 EE technologies. The ET Program works towards this goal by supporting early-stage R&D in component technologies for heating, ventilation, air-conditioning, and refrigeration (HVAC&R) and water heating; solid-state lighting; and windows and opaque building envelope. The ET Program also has sub-programs in integration technology areas including Sensors and Controls (S&C) and Building Energy Modeling (BEM). BTO’s ET Program seeks a talented and committed individual from among the pool of qualified candidates to help it support the HVAC&R portfolio.

Responsibilities

• Participate in technical reviews/assessments of proposed research and development plans, conduct technical and economic feasibility analysis, as well as evaluate at a deep technical level the progress and ongoing viability and success potential of projects toward meeting the BTO energy efficiency goals. This includes periodic technical reviews and providing rigorous technical feedback for funded R&D projects; as well as engaging in the negotiation of statements of work and project management plans with technically rigorous milestones, go/no-go decision points, stage-gates and deliverables for new awards.

• Collaborate with Technical Managers and participants in the assessment of the state-of-the-art scientific literature and practice in relevant technologies and assess new opportunities for further advancement in the field and the industry, especially for advanced HVAC&R systems

• Engage in the integration of BTO’s HVAC&R research activities with other related activities across EERE, DOE, and with external stakeholders, specifically regarding energy storage, grid-interactivity, electrification and next-generation refrigerants.