[Bldg-sim] Modeling Solar Collectors - Energy Plus

[JRR]

Hi;

I'm working up a solar DHW system for a high rise apartment building 
with roughly 550 units.
The collectors have to be on the roof, and the mechanical room is on the 
roof.
This limits the weight of tankage , etc., so I'm trying an "on the fly"  
design where the solar
tempers the service entrance water and the building riser return as 
available.

The trick to providing the maximum amount of heat is to figure out how 
much heat
has to be stored mid-day in Summer without boiling the service tank.  A 
first pass at
sizing the components and adjusting the layout can be done using one day 
from each
month and a spreadsheet.

A detailed design for the "On the Fly" tempering seems to call for a 
full 8760 hourly simulation.
Has anyone out there used Energy Plus to model solar collectors as if 
they were a structure??
It shouldn't be too hard, I just need to trick E+ a few places.
Any comments // ideas ??
thanks.



John R Ross III  PE
Westwind Corporation
Vienna, VA 22182-1958
energy.wwind at cox.net