[Bldg-sim] Cooling Load in EnergyPlus

Ery Djunaedy ery.mailinglist at gmail.com
Fri Mar 4 16:18:11 PST 2011


Nope, not that I know of. Before this kind of summaries is implemented 
in EPlus, I think scripting is the way to get faster results. SQLite is 
really a powerful result analysis tool. What you describe below can be 
implemented relatively easily with some SQL statements.

We have been trying to come up with a better way to communicate this 
kind of output to the client. I will share the results to this list once 
we finalize how to do this in EPlus.

Thanks,

Ery

On 03/04/2011 05:04 PM, Karen Walkerman wrote:
> Thanks Ery.
>
> It helps.  It's just slow.  What I love about LS-C is that it's fast. 
>  Do you know of a way to get a grouped report for all walls within a 
> particular zone.  So instead of having hourly output for every wall in 
> a space, you would have one for each: exterior walls, interior walls, 
> etc?  This would make reviewing these outputs much faster!
>
> Thanks!
>
> Karen
>
> On Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 6:52 PM, Ery Djunaedy 
> <ery.mailinglist at gmail.com <mailto:ery.mailinglist at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Hi Karen,
>     Same here, I always use LS-C when I use eQuest. Just adding the
>     ventilaton load, then you will have the peak load. Its always fun
>     to compare this number with what the mechanical engineer has.
>     I said earlier, in EnergyPlus it is not nicely formated like LS-C.
>     It does not mean you cannot have it. You can force EPlus to show
>     the numbers. The internal gains are the easy ones, the windows are
>     also relatively easy, the last pieces are the opaque "conduction"
>     and the ventilation load. Which is not difficult.
>
>     The problem is what peak to report? You will have the peak of the
>     total gains, which will happen at a different timestep then the
>     peak of the cooling load. And these two, in turn is different with
>     the zone sizing report.
>
>     I personally use the zone sizing reports as the peak loads, and I
>     will get all the details by running the designday run with
>     schedules consistent with the design day schedule.
>
>     Hope this helps,
>
>     Ery
>
>     On Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 12:00 PM, Karen Walkerman
>     <kwalkerman at gmail.com <mailto:kwalkerman at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>         Hi Ery,
>
>         Thanks for this explanation.  I have been struggling with this
>         topic as well as I do more modeling in Energy Plus.  However,
>         there is one thing that you did not address above.  While
>         DOE2's LS-C report may not match exactly to what systems are
>         seeing as far as loads, it does give an easily readable report
>         which allows you to check your inputs.  I review it quite
>         often as a quality control check for my models.  It also
>         allows me to target energy saving measures, and helps me
>         explain to clients why certain changes might make sense for
>         their building.  For example, one client might be interested
>         in increasing roof insulation, but if they have a multi-story
>         building with a relatively small roof, and lots of wall area,
>         it makes more sense for them to reduce thermal bridging in
>         their wall construction.  Having a model-generated report
>         makes this process much faster for me.
>
>         Do you have any suggestions with regards to Energy Plus of
>         ways to achieve the above goals with the currently available
>         reports?
>
>         Thanks.
>
>         --
>         Karen
>
>         On Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 12:26 PM, Ery Djunaedy
>         <ery.mailinglist at gmail.com <mailto:ery.mailinglist at gmail.com>>
>         wrote:
>
>             Sandeep,
>
>             This is what I call a legacy topic from the DOE2 era. You
>             better search the posts in EnergyPlus support mailing
>             list. Search for "cooling load component", and you will
>             find an interesting discussion.
>
>             In summary, you will not find a cooling load component
>             report in EnergyPlus nicely formatted a-la LS-C report in
>             eQuest/DOE2.
>
>             If you try to match the total gains v.s. the cooling load
>             for every time step, then you will be in for a long ride.
>             Take the solar radiation gain, for example. The GAIN for a
>             particular time step is not necessarily converted into
>             cooling LOAD at the next time step. If your building is
>             thermally massive, then the delay plays an important role
>             and it could be hours before the solar radiation GAIN
>             becomes an actual LOAD as seen by the thermostat. Do not
>             forget about this, if you try to match the cooling load
>             report with the total gains.
>
>             If you are talking about peak cooling load, then you will
>             need to focus on the zone sizing report. Calculating the
>             gains component is easy because the schedule is always
>             100% on. You just need to quantify the ventilation load.
>
>             Please note that the report suggested by Paul below is the
>             convection report. I imagine that you would expect a
>             conduction report? EnergyPlus zones technically cannot see
>             conduction through opaque surfaces, in the sense of
>             A*U*DeltaT. They can only see convection and radiation. In
>             fact, if you try to match A*U*DeltaT for external wall
>             with this report (Surface Int Convection Heat Rate) then
>             you will have a hard time explaining. If you keep this in
>             mind, the differences can be easily explained.
>
>             Cheeers,
>
>             Ery
>
>
>             On 03/04/2011 07:07 AM, Paul Raftery wrote:
>>             Hi Sandeep,
>>
>>             A full list of the available output variables are given
>>             in the .rdd file (it is one of the files output from the
>>             simulation). Simply copy the relevant line from that file
>>             into your .idf (or .imf) file, rerun the simulation, and
>>             the new variable(s) will be output to the .csv and .eso
>>             files.
>>
>>             e.g. Adding this line to the input file  will give you
>>             the convective heat gain from all interior surfaces in
>>             your model.
>>             Output:Variable,*,Surface Int Convection Heat
>>             Rate,hourly; !- Zone Average [W]
>>
>>             Regards,
>>             Paul
>>
>>             On 4 March 2011 13:50, Sandeep Kachhawa
>>             <sandeep.kachhawa at gmail.com
>>             <mailto:sandeep.kachhawa at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>>                 Dear All
>>                 Can we get the individual break-up of cooling load in
>>                 *EnergyPlus*? Internal loads (People, Equipment &
>>                 Lighting), Infiltration loads and Window  gains are
>>                 available but the *gians from Walls and Roof is
>>                 missing. *Surely EnergyPlus does calculate all the
>>                 above loads to size the Cooling Equipment but there
>>                 is no such specific output.
>>                 Regards
>>                 Sandeep Kachhawa
>>
>
>
>             _______________________________________________
>             Bldg-sim mailing list
>             http://lists.onebuilding.org/listinfo.cgi/bldg-sim-onebuilding.org
>             To unsubscribe from this mailing list send  a blank
>             message to BLDG-SIM-UNSUBSCRIBE at ONEBUILDING.ORG
>             <mailto:BLDG-SIM-UNSUBSCRIBE at ONEBUILDING.ORG>
>
>
>
>
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     Bldg-sim mailing list
>     http://lists.onebuilding.org/listinfo.cgi/bldg-sim-onebuilding.org
>     To unsubscribe from this mailing list send  a blank message to
>     BLDG-SIM-UNSUBSCRIBE at ONEBUILDING.ORG
>     <mailto:BLDG-SIM-UNSUBSCRIBE at ONEBUILDING.ORG>
>
>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.onebuilding.org/pipermail/bldg-sim-onebuilding.org/attachments/20110304/a8535d85/attachment-0002.htm>


More information about the Bldg-sim mailing list