[Bldg-sim] IES-VE Energy

[Varkie C Thomas]

Attached are my views on the eQUEST program.  I tried to compare DOE2.1E and eQUEST using a one million square-foot high-rise mixed-use building with about 200 zones and several types of systems.  Most of my eQUEST modeling time was spent in trying to get rid of the eQUEST decisions and assumptions made by the wizards so that it matched the DOE2.1E input (the actual project specifications) at every point.  You have to start with the wizard because the best feature of eQUEST – creating the building model, floor plans & zones by tracing AutoCAD drawings – is not available in detailed edit.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: Karen Walkerman <kwalkerman at gmail.com> 
Date: Wednesday, February 25, 2009 5:07 pm 
Subject: Re: [Bldg-sim] IES-VE Energy 
To: Varkie C Thomas <thomasv at iit.edu> 
Cc: Graham Carter & Megan Lyall <hamnmegs at ozemail.com.au>, Varkie Thomas <varkie.thomas at yahoo.com>, bldg-sim at lists.onebuilding.org 

> Varkie, 
> 
> I disagree with your statement that eQuest is not appropriate for 
> largebuildings because you can't change space names to match 
> architectural names 
> in wizard mode, and the inputs created from the wizard aren't 
> appropriatefor all spaces. The wizards are called "Schematic 
> Design Wizard" and 
> "Design Development Wizard" for a reason. They aren't desinged 
> for detail, 
> they're designed to help you make big design decisions quickly. 
> If you want 
> the building to be modeled as closely as possible to the final 
> design, this 
> takes some extra work. Yeah, re-naming spaces is a pain, but at 5 
> secondsper space, re-naming 1,000 spaces takes about 1.5 hours, 
> well worth the 
> effort. If you re-name zones too, maybe it's 3 hours total. 
> 
> Yeah, some things about eQuest are clumsy, like why does it create one 
> underground wall (and floor) consturction for each surface, when 
> only 4-5 
> are needed for the whole model? Why does it re-create occupancy, 
> lightingand micellaneous equipment schedules for each shell, even 
> if the use is the 
> same? And why does it create tons of duplicate infiltration 
> schedules?BUT... this takes an hour or two to clean up, and then 
> you have a decently 
> flexible model that gives you reasonable results in a matter of 
> minutes.Versus a program that takes 1-2 hours to run. I've done a 
> few LEED projects 
> in Trace700 and it's painful modeling a design case and four 
> (rotated) base 
> cases at 1-2 hours each, especially if you then find you've left 
> anythingout. 
> 
> I definitely agree that there are some major things missing in all 
> modelingprograms, which is why I'm putting together a "Master Wish 
> List" of 
> modeler's desires. If you have things that you would like to be 
> able to 
> model, things you'd like to be able to model more easily, or 
> things that you 
> can do that you feel are very important, please send me your list. 
> I 
> currently have contact info for about 10 people representing various 
> simulation programs who want to know what we want! Now's our 
> chance to have 
> some input! 
> 
> -- 
> Karen 
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 2:15 PM, Varkie C Thomas <thomasv at iit.edu> 
> wrote: 
> > Graham, 
> > 
> > The comment below stands out which might also be the reason for 
> not using 
> > EnergyPlus on large projects. 
> > 
> > - DOE-2.2 runs much quicker. For comparable 30,000 m2 buildings 
> I would 
> > say DOE-2 runs in 1 minute and IES VE with an APhvac network 
> probably 1-2 
> > hours. If you through in Macroflo it probably adds another hour of 
> > simulation time. As a result *iterative trial and error 
> debugging* has to 
> > be done on a 1-2 week period. 
> > 
> > Large building projects (1 to 10 million sqft) with up to 1,000 
> zones and 
> > 70 systems ranging in size from 10,000 to 200,000 cfm (pardon 
> the English 
> > units - the USA & the Bahamas are not going to switch to metric) 
> require> several iterative runs to get the input errors fixed. 
> Breaking up the 
> > project into small pieces is not a solution since it affects 
> demand costs, 
> > central plants and other components. I have worked on such 
> projects using 
> > DOE2.1E and TRACE600/700. 
> > 
> > eQUEST is not suitable for such projects either. One of its 
> limitations is 
> > that you cannot enter the space names shown on architectural 
> drawings.> Others include assuming all the input data and making 
> all the decisions for 
> > you when you enter the type of building. 1000 zones means 1000 
> infiltration> schedules and multiples of other building 
> components. It is unrealistic to 
> > check all the input created by eQUEST for errors. Fixing 
> everything to match 
> > the exact project data has to be done in detailed edit. 
> Detailed edit means 
> > you lose access to the graphical method of creating the building 
> model from 
> > AutoCAD drawings which is the main benefit of this program. 
> > Varkie 
> > 
> > 
> 
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