Projects related to BTO’s Advanced Building Construction (ABC) Initiative use innovative solutions that could drastically increase the speed and scale of delivering high-performance, resilient buildings.
January 16, 2025
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The U.S. Department of Energy’s Building Technologies Office (BTO) hosted its annual Peer Review in October 2024 , drawing more than 500 attendees from the federal government, national labs, industry, academia, and non-governmental organizations. A growing number of the BTO projects that were reviewed centered on industrialized approaches for increasing the energy performance, durability, and thermal comfort of new buildings and retrofits. These projects, related to BTO’s Advanced Building Construction (ABC) Initiative, use innovative solutions that could drastically increase the speed and scale of delivering high-performance, resilient buildings.
Eight ABC projects were reviewed, covering both residential and commercial building applications, as well as market engagement and scaling efforts through the ABC Collaborative. Two universities, two national laboratories, two non-profits, and a service provider for the home building industry lead these innovative projects.
One of the featured ABC projects was Syracuse University’s Integrated Whole-Building Energy Efficiency Retrofit Solution for Residences in Cold/Very Cold Climates. The retrofit demonstration includes a highly insulated, prefabricated exterior building envelope and a high-efficiency integrated mechanical pod solution on attached single family student housing. The solution could easily be adapted for detached single family and low-rise multifamily buildings. The university’s approach addresses the need for innovation in the integrated delivery of retrofits through design, analysis, monitoring, fabrication, and installation. The use of 3D scanning of the existing buildings and 3D modeling for design workflow enabled a more automated, cost-effective approach and reduced onsite retrofit time. The retrofits include a prefabricated, reinforced, insulated (R-27) expanded polystyrene foam exterior panel system and a high-efficiency heating, cooling, hot water, and energy recovery ventilation mechanical pod. The retrofits were installed on two buildings in the summer and fall of 2024, with post-retrofit monitoring, modeling, analysis, and resident surveys planned for fall 2024 through spring 2026.
Additional details about the Syracuse University project, along with the full list of ABC presentations from BTO’s 2024 Peer Review are available below:
- A Recipe for ABC Multifamily Retrofits: Technologies, Financing, and Project Delivery, RMI
- ABC Collaborative, RMI
- Comprehensive Single-family Home Deep Energy Retrofits with Prefabricated Panel-Block Wall Insulation, Fraunhofer USA
- Innovative Technologies to Overcome Interface Challenges for Wall Retrofit Systems, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
- Integrated Retrofit Solutions for Residential and Commercial Buildings, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
- Integrated Whole-Building Energy Efficiency Retrofit Solution for Residences in Cold/Very Cold Climates, Syracuse University
- Next Generation Wall Retrofit Panels with Integrated VIPS, Home Innovation Research Labs
- PV-GEMS: PV-Powered, Grid Enhanced Mechanical Solution, University of Central Florida/ Florida Solar Energy Center
About the ABC Initiative
The Advanced Building Construction (ABC) Initiative, led by the Building Technologies Office (BTO), integrates energy efficiency and advanced technology solutions into industrialized construction processes to drastically increase the speed and scale of high-performance, resilient building retrofits and new construction.