Transforming Building Operations with New Self-Correcting Controls Technology

Advancing Market Solutions for Self-Correcting, Optimized Controls

Leapfrogging the status quo, the U.S. Department of Energy and Berkeley Lab have joined forces with the smart buildings industry to deliver the first-ever technology to automatically find and correct controls problems.

Building controls are notoriously error-prone

Equipment faults and control problems drive up greenhouse gas emissions and energy bills - to the tune of $17 billion and 90 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent annually. These problems compromise occupant comfort and productivity, as well as equipment life, and make it difficult to coordinate building power use with a clean energy grid.

Analytics technologies are now even more powerful

Building fault detection and diagnostics technologies are already saving owners millions of dollars per year in their buildings, with less than two-year paybacks. In partnership with Berkeley Lab researchers, Clockworks Analytics and CopperTree Analytics have integrated optimal control capability into their fault diagnostics platforms. Berkeley Lab’s Sustainability team has also deployed this capability in the campus SkyFoundry platform.

Today, we have merged analytics and optimal control to automatically find and fix equipment and control problems as they arise.

Early adopter organizations include:

Implemented at:

With a click, staff can authorize automated fixes that shorten the time between fault detection and resolution.

“The work that Berkeley Lab is doing to promote automated commissioning will change the game for building energy management and operations. It is a big next step in the evolution of smart buildings: fixing control problems with the push of a button, locking in savings, and directing staff time to where it’s most needed.”

Michael Robbins, Lockheed Martin
(contract, Emory University)

Interested in learning more?

Building owners: Please contact us to learn more about how to acquire and use these technologies.

Software providers: Please contact us for assistance to incorporate these open-source corrective solutions into your products, and to extend the current library.

White paper documenting the work to develop and deploy self-correcting optimal control technology

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By integrating optimal control and fault diagnostics capabilities we can now:

Reserve operations and maintenance staff expertise for the hardest problems
Maintain efficient, in-tune building operations
Scale the delivery of low-carbon demand-flexible buildings through software-based product infrastructure

Self-correcting capabilities

We have developed solutions to automatically resolve the most common, impactful building controls problems. This new technology capability is applicable to smaller buildings with packaged heating ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems, as well as large buildings with built-up systems.

Optimized economizer high lockout temperature setpoint
Correction of incorrectly programmed HVAC schedules
Release of unnecessary control overrides
Correction of biased temperature sensors
Automated loop tuning
Implementation of best practice reset strategies
Mitigation of rogue zones
Optimized zone temperature setpoint setback

Additional Information

Transforming Commercial Building Operations

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 2022

Development and Implementation of Fault-Correction Algorithms in Fault Detection and Diagnostics Tools

Energies 13(10), 2020

From fault-detection to automated fault correction: A field study

Building and Environment 214, 2022

Contact us

Berkeley Lab is excited to continue bringing these capabilities to our nation’s buildings.

Building owners: Please contact us to learn more about how to acquire and use these technologies.

Software providers: Please contact us for assistance to incorporate these open-source corrective solutions into your products, and to extend the current library.

Jessica Granderson

Deputy Division Director, Building Technology and Urban Systems Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

JGranderson@lbl.gov