[Bldg-sim] Spam:Re: EPact 2005 tax savings
Duke Graham
duke at gaiadevelopment.com
Thu Feb 26 08:58:12 PST 2009
Probably a silly question, but can one of US submit eQuest for approval?
Does it have to come from the developers?
Just thinking.
From: bldg-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org [mailto:bldg-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org] On Behalf Of Sam Mason
Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2009 7:46 AM
To: James Hess; Crawley, Drury; Addison Marlin; Hirsch J. James
Cc: EFranconi at archenergy.com; BLDG-SIM at lists.onebuilding.org; Jay Keazer; Brantley Caleb; DGoldstein at nrdc.org
Subject: Re: [Bldg-sim] Spam:Re: EPact 2005 tax savings
Thanks everyone for the interesting discussion. I wanted to get to the bottom of the actual software requirements, so I dug around on the IRS website and found the following info (http://www.irs.gov/irb/2008-14_IRB/ar12.html#d0e4028). From what I can tell, equest meets all of the requirements below. It would seem as Drury said no one has submitted the documentation to the DOE for approval. This has huge implications for anybody involved in this business.
.01 In General. The Department of Energy creates and maintains a public list of software that may be used to calculate energy and power consumption and costs for purposes of providing a certification under section 4 of Notice 2006-52. This public list appears at http://www.eere.energy.gov/buildings/info/tax_incentives.html. Soft- ware will be included on the list if the software developer submits the following information to the Department of Energy:
(1) The name, address, and (if applicable) web site of the software developer;
(2) The name, email address, and telephone number of the person to contact for further information regarding the software;
(3) The name, version, or other identifier of the software as it will appear on the list;
(4) All test results, input files, output files, weather data, modeler reports, and the executable version of the software with which the tests were conducted; and
(5) A declaration by the developer of the software made under penalties of perjury and containing all of the following information:
(a) A statement that the software has been tested according to the American National Standards Institute/American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ANSI/ASHRAE) Standard 140-2007 Standard Method of Test for the Evaluation of Building Energy Analysis Computer Programs.
(b) A statement that the software can model explicitly—
(i) 8,760 hours per year;
(ii) Calculation methodologies for the building components being modeled;
(iii) Hourly variations in occupancy, lighting power, miscellaneous equipment power, thermostat setpoints, and HVAC system operation, defined separately for each day of the week and holidays;
(iv) Thermal mass effects;
(v) Ten or more thermal zones;
(vi) Part-load performance curves for mechanical equipment;
(vii) Capacity and efficiency correction curves for mechanical heating and cooling equipment; and
(viii) Air-side and water-side economizers with integrated control.
(c) A statement that the software can explicitly model each of the following HVAC systems listed in Appendix G of Standard 90.1-2004:
(i) Packaged Terminal Air Conditioner (PTAC) (air source), single-zone package (through the wall), multi-zone hydronic loop, air-to-air DX coil cooling, central boiler, hot water coil.
(ii) Packaged Terminal Heat Pump (PTHP) (air source), single-zone package (through the wall), air-to-air DX coil heat/cool.
(iii) Packaged Single Zone Air Conditioner (PSZ-AC), single-zone air, air-to-air DX coil cool, gas coil, constant-speed fan.
(iv) Packaged Single Zone Heat Pump (PSZ-HP), single-zone air, air-to-air DX coil cool/heat, constant-speed fan.
(v) Packaged Variable-Air-Volume (PVAV) with reheat, multi-zone air; multi-zone hydronic loop, air-to-air DX coil, VAV fan, boiler, hot water VAV terminal boxes.
(vi) Packaged Variable-Air-Volume with parallel fan powered boxes (PVAV with PFP boxes), multi-zone air, DX coil, VAV fan, fan-powered induction boxes, electric reheat.
(vii) Variable-Air-Volume (VAV) with reheat, multi-zone air, multi-zone hydronic loop, air-handling unit, chilled water coil, hot water coil, VAV fan, chiller, boiler, hot water VAV boxes.
(viii) Variable-Air-Volume with parallel fan powered boxes (VAV with PFP boxes), multi-zone air, air-handling unit, chilled water coil, hot water coil, VAV fan, chiller, fan-powered induction boxes, electric reheat.
(d) A statement that the software can—
(i) Either directly determine energy and power costs or produce hourly reports of energy use by energy source suitable for determining energy and power costs separately; and
(ii) Design load calculations to determine required HVAC equipment capacities and air and water flow rates.
(e) A statement describing which, if any, of the following the software can explicitly model:
(i) Natural ventilation.
(ii) Mixed mode (natural and mechanical) ventilation.
(iii) Earth tempering of outdoor air.
(iv) Displacement ventilation.
(v) Evaporative cooling.
(vi) Water use by occupants for cooking, cleaning or other domestic uses.
(vii) Water use by heating, cooling, or other equipment, or for on-site landscaping.
(viii) Automatic interior or exterior lighting controls (such as occupancy, photocells, or time clocks).
(viii) Daylighting (sidelighting, skylights, or tubular daylight devices).
(ix) Improved fan system efficiency through static pressure reset.
(x) Radiant heating or cooling (low or high temperature).
(xi) Multiple or variable speed control for fans, cooling equipment, or cooling towers.
(xii) On-site energy systems (such as combined heat and power systems, fuel cells, solar photovoltaic, solar thermal, or wind).
--
Sam Mason
Atelier Ten
sam.mason at atelierten.com
From: bldg-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org [mailto:bldg-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org] On Behalf Of James Hess
Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2009 12:42 AM
To: Crawley, Drury; Addison Marlin; Hirsch J. James
Cc: EFranconi at archenergy.com; DGoldstein at nrdc.org; Brantley Caleb; Jay Keazer; BLDG-SIM at lists.onebuilding.org
Subject: Re: [Bldg-sim] Spam:Re: EPact 2005 tax savings
This is a good discussion.
Just a question, if eQuest is DOE 2.1E (which has been accepted) but with bug fixes and enhancements, why wouldn't it already be accepted, or acceptable? What documentation needs to be submitted? I'm not understanding this discussion I guess. Are we not splitting hairs?
Another area I don't understand is why anybody is still using DOE2.1E, if DOE2.2 corrected many known errors present in DOE2.1E???
Maybe part of the reason eQuest is not being submitted/approved/upgraded is lack of funding. I have never understood why the eQuest program is strictly tied to receiving funding only from the California energy commission.
Like Ellen said, eQuest is one of the most widely used energy analysis programs in the US. We use it because it works for the production environment we work in (which does not allow for runtimes of hours). It's fast, very capable, accurate, & enables us to generate acceptable results for 99% of our projects while staying within our cost budgets. Whatever we can't do in eQuest, we can generally do with Excel supplementing.
That said, the program could use some upgrades. I'm guessing that there are users out here like myself that would gladly pay a general users fee if it meant getting upgrades to the program. Upgrades that are relevant to the user base and delivered in a more timely fashion. I'm saying I don't understand why the funding has to come only from California Energy Cx. Not saying that the CEC funding isn't appreciated, but that alternative funding by the general users at large could allow more features to be integrated into the program. Currently, the features that get upgraded into the program are determined by the CEC and their limited funding. This is why important features such as exhaust air energy recovery for dedicated outdoor air systems are missing.
Appreciate any follow up thoughts by anybody.
Regards,
James Hess
TME
Little Rock, AR
Sent from James' iPod
On Feb 25, 2009, at 10:48 PM, "Crawley, Drury" <Drury.Crawley at ee.doe.gov> wrote:
Any tool that has the required documentation is reviewed promptly by DOE and the results posted if the tool meets the qualification requirements. No documentation for eQuest has been submitted to DOE to date.
_____
From: bldg-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org
To: Xiaobing Liu ; Joe Huang
Cc: bldg-sim at lists.onebuilding.org ; David Goldstein
Sent: Wed Feb 25 19:25:31 2009
Subject: Re: [Bldg-sim] EPact 2005 tax savings
Joe, thanks for shedding some light on the acceptance criteria and how it compares to other approaches.
It is truly a shame that eQUEST has not been approved yet. I do not know what the hold up is but I believe the program was submitted years ago to DOE for acceptance. VisualDOE was accepted a couple of months after its application was submitted. It makes you wonder what DOE 2.2 is missing that DOE 2.1E has. Better submittal documentation?
eQUEST is probably the most widely used program for performing simulation analysis in the U.S. With our current administration's initiative to promote an energy-efficient economy and have Federal Buildings achieve 30% better performance than 90.1-2004, it is inconsistent that this program is not fast-tracked for acceptance. With construction costs climbing dramatically, these tax incentives could go a long way to help achieve what they were designed for - promoting energy efficient buildings in the U.S.
If anyone on BLDG-SIM can provide insights into why eQUEST has not been accepted, please share this with the rest of us. And if no explanation can be provided, perhaps we can use our BLDG-SIM critical mass to encourage DOE and/or the software developers to push this through the acceptance process.
Ellen
Ellen Franconi, Ph.D., LEED AP
Energy Analysis Group Manager
Architectural Energy Corporation
2540 Frontier Avenue
Boulder, CO 80301
tel. 303-444-4149
fax 303-444-4303
efranconi at archenergy.com
http://www.archenergy.com/
>>> Joe Huang <joe at drawbdl.com> 02/25/09 2:17 PM >>>
I frankly don't understand the criteria of acceptance for software
approval. It seems to accept any program that's self-described as
capable of dynamic simulations with time-varying inputs and outputs, and
has gone through the ASHRAE/ANSI Standard 140 comparisons. But Standard
140 is just a cross-program comparison for very simplified cases, sort
of digital hot-box experiments, if you will. Does this mean that all
simulations done with these programs are valid and credible ? Any DOE-2
simulation ? Any EnergyPlus simulation ? Of course not. It's all in the
inputs, and if the inputs or modeling are faulty, the results could be
all over the map. If we compare this criteria of acceptance to
California's Title-24 Certification of compliance programs, the
approaches are almost completely opposite. Here, the criteria are
whether the programs have the right fundamentals or "intentions" ;
there, the criteria are whether the programs give the right results.
I'm afraid we're leaving the barn door open for a lot of questionable
claims backed up by the use (or abuse) of supposedly approved software.
Joe Huang
Xiaobing Liu wrote:
> As I remember, Green Building Studio (GBS) is on the list. Since GBS
> runs eQUEST (and other software?) behind the screen, can the tax
> credits be granted if the building performance simulation is conducted
> by eQUEST through GBS. I'm a bit confused here. Can anyone shed light
> on this issue?
>
> Xiaobing
>
> -----Original Message-----
> *From:* bldg-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org
> [mailto:bldg-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org]*On Behalf Of
> *David S Eldridge
> *Sent:* Wednesday, February 25, 2009 2:22 PM
> *To:* bldg-sim at lists.onebuilding.org
> *Subject:* Re: [Bldg-sim] EPact 2005 tax savings
>
> It is currently not submitted for approval.
>
> ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
>
>
>
> David Eldridge, PE
>
> LEED® AP
>
>
> *Grumman/Butkus Associates* | 820 Davis Street, STE 300 |
> Evanston, IL 60201 | Ph: (847) 328-3555, ext 224 | Fax: (847) 328-4550
>
>
>
> Energy Consultants and Design Engineers
> ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* bldg-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org
> [mailto:bldg-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org] *On Behalf Of
> *Chris Mullinax
> *Sent:* Wednesday, February 25, 2009 2:26 PM
> *To:* bldg-sim at lists.onebuilding.org
> *Subject:* [Bldg-sim] EPact 2005 tax savings
>
>
>
>
>
> http://www1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/qualified_software.html
>
>
>
> Epact 2005 tax credits were extended to 2013 in the recent
> “Stimulus Package.”
>
>
>
> I’m looking at a page on the DOE web site that lists approved
> software used obtain Epact 2005 tax credits, and I notice eQuest
> is not specifically listed. DOE-2.1 is listed however. Does anyone
> know if eQuest will be acceptable for EPact 2005 simulations?
>
>
>
> The link to the list is given above.
>
> Any help is appreciated.
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Chris Mullinax, P.E. LEED AP
>
>
>
> pn: 770-387-1334
>
> fx: 770-387-1383
>
> chris at mullinaxsolutions.com <mailto:chris at mullinaxsolutions.com>
>
> www.mullinaxsolutions.com <http://www.mullinaxsolutions.com>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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