Planning IUCRC at City College of New York: Center for Building Energy Smart Technology (BEST)

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The Center of Building Energy Smart Technologies (BEST-East) is a partnership between The City College of New York, New York University and the BEST-West center node at University of Colorado-Boulder. Through synergistic research and development between the industry and the academia, the Center seeks to advance building energy systems to be intelligent and energy efficient. This energy sector is responsible for the highest energy end-use in the US, about 40% of total national energy consumption. We will develop and test energy technologies for environments ranging from single buildings to urban districts. This includes intelligent building envelope materials and systems, advanced HVAC systems, and building integrated sustainable energy technologies. These solutions will optimize energy efficiency, occupant comfort, resiliency in extreme events, and conservation of natural resources. The Center will represent a unique platform for collaboration between diverse range of industries and universities, with the common goal of developing the next generation energy technologies for the built environment. The Center is committed to training the next generation engineers and scientists, which will be drawn from across the partnership to work in a collaborative environment. The Center will thus play a crucial role in improving the nation?s building infrastructure and energy security.The BEST-East Center will bring together multi-disciplinary research capabilities of US universities and partner industries to develop smart technologies that enhance energy sustainability and resiliency for individual buildings and for urban centers. In order to address the need of the rich and diverse building industry, the Center will engage in five complementary thrust research areas including: (i) Smart buildings materials, (ii) Intelligent building mechanical and electrical energy systems, (iii) Distributed and renewable energy systems, (iv) City-scale building energy informatics, and (v) Distributed data sensors and networks for the building energy industry. Research and development for the proposed Center will be anchored on fundamentals of heat and mass transport processes at the building and city scales, energy conversion processes, building materials, information and cyber sciences. The Center will also include technical innovations on integrated renewable energy technologies, and advanced building enclosures, fenestration and lighting, and energy informatics to yield tightly integrated, intelligent, adaptive, and efficient building energy systems. Moreover, the Center will address pressing energy efficiency issues in new buildings as well as in existing building stocks that are in need of remedial and rehabilitation with consideration for the sustainability impacts and resiliency needs of buildings and cities.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.