Research

NECSC conducts research that advances our understanding of how advanced energy technologies, infrastructure systems and building materials can be integrated with performance enhancing land use planning and urban design features to produce low-impact community development projects. This research emphasizes an interdisciplinary systems approach to structural, mechanical, civil and electrical engineering and materials sciences. The NECSC also conducts economic and policy research that examines the market and institutional barriers that prevent use of these technologies, materials and management practices and that produces solutions to those barriers. Research initiatives include those that:

Generate commercially viable energy technology & development design options that maximize efficiency, reduce peak energy demand & improve grid utilization
Estimate impacts of the optimal mix of energy efficiency, renewable energy, distributed generation, combined cooling, heat and power (CCHP) & demand response technologies on greenhouse gas emissions
Explore financial & business models & public policies to accelerate deployment of renewable & energy-efficient technologies
Develop technology integration & deployment strategies that enable progress toward meeting renewable portfolio & energy efficiency standards
Produce innovations in engineering, design & decision support tools

Although most NECSC research projects are interdisciplinary, we have organized information about our initiatives in four focus areas. These are: