On January 23, 2013, E3, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the Davis Energy Group led a workshop in Oakland, CA to describe the progress and achievements under a California Solar Initiative (CSI) and Pacific Gas and Electric funded project focused on developing analysis tools for low energy California homes. This project focused on enhancing NREL’s residential Building Energy Optimization software, BEopt, to support analysis of optimal whole-home retrofits/designs for California. The tool was also enhanced to provide utility cost effectiveness analysis so that it can be used more directly in the energy efficiency framework of the California Public Utility Commission. BEopt provides capabilities to evaluate residential building designs and identify cost-optimal efficiency packages at various levels of whole-house energy savings along the path to zero net energy.
