Hello all,
I’m a new EnergyPlus user (I’ve used eQUEST before) and came across some very strange results. I wanted to use EnergyPlus because of the DOE Benchmark Buildings (I used the DOE Commercial Building Benchmark - Large Office, pre-1980).
All I wanted to do was see how energy costs vary depending on fenestration performance so I set up 56 runs using the Parametric:SetValueForRun command and let EnergyPlus crank through the results.
I’ll share with you my results first: (this is for a building in MN)
So each line represents a constant U-value for each SHGC value I measured. I was really surprised by this graph. Previous studies using eQuest gave me results that look more like:
Where the lines don’t cross. The only explanation I can come up with for the EnergyPlus results is that in certain situations (say SHGC 0.35) the incoming solar heat is so great that the building benefits from conductive losses so a high (worse) U-value actually leads to energy savings. The problem is I don’t buy it – not in Minneapolis.
Any suggestions for what’s up? I didn’t alter anything in the file except for adding the parametric data to test the fenestration.
This is my first experience with EnergyPlus so it’s possible I’ve made a huge rookie mistake, but nothing jumped out at me as obviously wrong with my methodology – especially since I didn’t create the base file.
Happy Holidays and New Years all, I look forward to your comments.
Kind regards,
Alex Krickx
Alex Krickx, LEED AP
Building Energy Specialist
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