Professors Kane, Fannon, and Pavel.

The US Department of Energy recently awarded three Northeastern professors $2.2 million to create an open dataset characterizing occupant-centric control of grid-interactive efficient buildings. The team is led by Michael Kane, Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, who will serve as principal investigator. Professor Kane will be joined by co-investigators David Fannon, Assistant Professor of Architecture in the College of Arts, Media and Design (CAMD) and Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Misha Pavel, ECE affiliated faculty & Professor of Practice of Computer Science and Health Sciences. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL); ecobee, a leading thermostat manufacturer; and Packetized Energy, an IoT-based autonomous demand-response startup, will collaborate with Northeastern on the project.

Professor Kane and his team are looking to design smarter occupant-centric building control algorithms that learn user behavior, are easy to use, and can correctly predict HVAC performance and power draw. The project takes a novel approach to cost-effectively produce and share a large dataset on characterizing grid-interactive efficient buildings and occupant behavior. Congratulations to Professors Kane, Fannon, and Pavel!