[Bldg-sim] current limitations in building energy modeling and simulation

Randall Wilkinson randallcwilkinson at gmail.com
Fri Jan 4 18:48:58 PST 2013


I'll tell you one.  This happens on every energy modeling project.  The 
architect says "Why are you charging me to compute load calculations, 
and you are charging me more to do an energy model?  Why can't you get 
the loads from the energy model?"

And I always have to say something like "A loads calc model with 
sufficient detail to get the room by room loads we need for design is 
way too detailed for an energy model.  If we use a load calcs model for 
energy calcs, the progress would be too slow and the answers would not 
be more accurate."  And this I know from experience.

It would be nice to enter room by room information and have it spit out 
load data for sizing equipment and air flows, but use some different way 
of zoning for the energy calcs.  Maybe a way to identify rooms with 
similar load profiles that would be considered a single room for the 
purposes of the energy calculations.  Then of course, have a report for 
design loads and equipment sizing.

Sounds hard to me, but hey, you asked...

Randy

- -
Randall C. Wilkinson, P.E., C.E.M.
hvacware.net

On 13-01-04 05:53 PM, Geof Sawaya wrote:
> Hello Community,
>
> Again, I am coming to you for input in my efforts to make EnergyPlus 
> run faster.
>
> As Nathaniel Jones suggested, I would like to consider not just the 
> current bottlenecks in EnergyPlus simulations, which are ran from 
> models generated by designers considering the limitations of the 
> software and its capabilities; I would like to know where you would 
> like to get more detailed, precise or accurate data from a simulation 
> run, but accept lesser data in the interest of getting your job 
> finished in a limited amount of time.
>
> To boil it down, I'll ask my question this way: *if you could choose 
> one area in EnergyPlus to speed up, what would it be?  Another way of 
> putting it: where would you like more detail in your models, but you 
> simplify in order to reduce simulation execution time?*
> *
> *
> Many thanks for your help and Happy New Year --
>
> Geof Sawaya
> DOE Building Technologies Compute Fellow
> EETD / BTD / Simulation Research Group
> Lawrence Berkeley Lab, Berkeley, CA
>
>
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