[Federal Register Volume 84, Number 79 (Wednesday, April 24, 2019)]
[Notices]
[Pages 17147-17148]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2019-08266]


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DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY


Notice of Request for Information (RFI) on Research and 
Development Opportunities for Building Energy Modeling

AGENCY: Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Department of 
Energy (DOE).

ACTION: Request for information (RFI).

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SUMMARY: The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) invites public comment on 
its Request for Information (RFI). The Office of Energy Efficiency and 
Renewable Energy (EERE) Building Technologies Office (BTO) seeks input 
from the public about research and development opportunities in 
building energy modeling (BEM). In particular, BTO is interested in 
feedback on planned research and development initiatives and their 
prioritization, on program scope, and on data-sets, metrics and targets 
for assessing program effectiveness and impact.

DATES: Responses to the RFI must be received by 5:00 p.m. (ET) on June 
3, 2019.

ADDRESSES: Interested parties are to submit comments electronically to 
[email protected]. Include ``DRAFT Research and Development 
Opportunities for Building Energy Modeling'' in the subject of the 
title. Responses must be provided as attachments to an email. It is 
recommended that attachments with file sizes exceeding 25MB be 
compressed (i.e., zipped) to ensure message delivery. Responses must be 
provided as a Microsoft Word (.docx) attachment to the email, and no 
more than 10 pages in length, 12 point font, 1 inch margins. Only 
electronic responses will be accepted. The complete RFI document is 
located at https://eere-exchange.energy.gov/.
    Please identify your answers by responding to a specific question 
or topic if applicable. Within the Report, Topics, Barriers, and 
Initiatives are numbered. In your response, please include these 
numbers in your responses. Respondents may answer as many or as few 
questions as they wish.
    BTO will not respond to individual submissions or publish publicly 
a compendium of responses.
    A response to this RFI will not be viewed as a binding commitment 
to develop or pursue the project or ideas discussed.
    Respondents are requested to provide the following information at 
the start of their response to this RFI:

 Institution name and website
 Institution type (e.g., university, utility, non-profit 
organization, small business, etc.)
 BEM stakeholder type (e.g., developer, user, client)
 Institution contact name and email address

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Questions may be addressed to 
[email protected] or Amir Roth, [email protected], (202) 
287.1694. Further instruction can be found in the RFI document posted 
on EERE Exchange.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The purpose of this RFI is to solicit 
feedback from industry, academia, research laboratories, government 
agencies, and other stakeholders on BTO's BEM program and its future 
directions and priorities. To clarify these, BTO has developed a report 
that is structured around six focus areas (the BEM value proposition, 
predictive accuracy of BEM, core modeling capabilities, workflow 
integration and automation, the BEM data ecosystem, and BEM 
professionals). The report identifies barriers to the increased 
adoption of BEM and proposing a set of initiatives to address them. BTO 
is requesting feedback on each of these barriers, the associated 
initiatives, as well as barriers and initiatives that have not been 
identified. BTO is also requesting feedback on datasets, metrics, and 
targets for assessing the impact and progress of the BEM industry and 
its own BEM program. The RFI is available at: https://eere-exchange.energy.gov/.

Confidential Business Information

    Pursuant to 10 CFR 1004.11, any person submitting information that 
he or she believes to be confidential and exempt by law from public 
disclosure should submit via email two well marked copies: One copy of 
the document marked ``confidential'' including all the information 
believed to be confidential, and one copy of the document marked ``non-
confidential'' with the information believed to be confidential 
deleted. DOE will make its own determination about the confidential 
status of the information and treat it according to its determination. 
Factors of interest to DOE when evaluating requests to treat submitted 
information as confidential include: (1) A description of the items; 
(2) whether and why such items are customarily treated as confidential 
within the industry; (3) whether the information is generally known by 
or available from other sources; (4) whether the information has 
previously been made available to others without

[[Page 17148]]

obligation concerning its confidentiality; (5) an explanation of the 
competitive injury to the submitting person that would result from 
public disclosure; (6) when such information might lose its 
confidential character due to the passage of time; and (7) why 
disclosure of the information would be contrary to the public interest.

    Signed in Washington, DC on April 16, 2019.
David Nemtzow,
Director, Building Technologies Office.
[FR Doc. 2019-08266 Filed 4-23-19; 8:45 am]
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