RE: [EnergyPlus_Support] Running E+ on the "cloud"

Hi, Dr. Zhang

I agree mostly with what you said.

Some one asked whether EPlus is approved to use for certain building certification in UK. We were directed to a web-site. DesignBuilder was listed as an approved software to use. Eplus did not appear any where on that list. So, users in UK would not know how EPlus is used.

I use EPlus, because it is good and free. I am not using it to earn money. I am here, just to help some users in the group so that if they are really serious about the environment, they will be able to design more real green buildings, and not spend time to certify that a building is greener to run HVAC all the year around. Actually, I think the new up-dates of EPlus is moving the software application in a different direction. It is encouraging user to spend more time in comfort design rather than saving energy, by using VAV with reheat.

Those who get paid to run simulation should develop the fancy software to help them earn more money, and to get more erning for invesment. They should dive into the Clouds to find out.

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"There really isn't any fundamental difference between free and not free; it only slightly alters the distribution of 'money' between all players. The consultant kept more of his fees because he didn't have to pay for E+; so he got a bit wealthier. How does he use his new acquainted wealth? Spend it or invested it; either way put it back to economic activities. From the government's point of view, there is no difference between collecting tax from the E+ team, or paying them to do research and then collecting tax from everyone else who 'benefited' from the technology. "

The key word or phrase is "distribution of maney between all players." There is a time lag and size difference. Government can print money at any time and it will not be allowed to fail. Private business cannot start without money and have to find the capital and is allowed to fail, like Nortel, Enron, etc.

An enterpreneur would borrow money with minimum interest payment and run the business at an optimum accounting balance and pay no tax. An enterpreneour can use free EPlus and give nothing back to the Government, because of his enterpreneourship.

How to tax, and what to tax is giving government headache and causing political parties to loose votes. Politics is the problem of government officials, but they are politicians.

Carbon is not a problem. Life style in some countries is a problem. Cool.

Hiding the cigaretts be

Hmm... this is an interesting research question: in what situations 4 design days will be as good as an annual simulation. Someone must have investigated this!

About cloud for building simulation, I guess we are all excited by the possibilities... whether or not it is free is less relevant, I think. On a philosophical note, NOTHING is free as you said. E+ is free for user, yes, but who pays E+'s development? The US government. Where does US government give money from? Businesses and tax payers. Where do businesses and tax payers get money from? Their economic activities, part of which is enabled by E+. A consultant used E+ to do a project. Part of his fees will find its way back to the E+ team, eventually. At least he didn't have to pay upfront for E+, which reduces his risk, apparently. However, if he can be assured that by adopting a technology, it can increase his income more than the price he has to pay, he will be happy to do that.

There really isn't any fundamental difference between free and not free; it only slightly alters the distribution of 'money' between all players. The consultant kept more of his fees because he didn't have to pay for E+; so he got a bit wealthier. How does he use his new acquainted wealth? Spend it or invested it; either way put it back to economic activities. From the government's point of view, there is no difference between collecting tax from the E+ team, or paying them to do research and then collecting tax from everyone else who 'benefited' from the technology.

That was only talking about money. Now let's look at what is the essence of economic activities. In the current social and economic structure of the world, economic activities means only one thing: throughput of natural resources! Everything (economic activities) we do costs the Planet. Yes we can say that we are trying to improve the efficiency of this throughput, i.e. to power more economy by consuming same or less resources. It is not happening, yet; and there isn't any evidence that it ever going to happen. (There are quite a few books discussing this.) Our research and development is still supported by carbon-rich money. The only hope is, it is all for the greater good...

Coming back to cloud for building simulation, we engineers are naturally attracted to new technologies, just like the Apple cult's obsession to new iStuff. It is kind of like consumerism in an engineer's way... But, come on, we got to try cloud! It IS so cool!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Dr Yi Zhang

IESD, De Montfort University, United Kingdom

From: EnergyPlus_Support@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx on behalf of YuanLu Li
Sent: Fri 23/12/2011 13:28
To: EnergyPlus_Support
Subject: RE: [EnergyPlus_Support] Running E+ on the "cloud"

All I was pointing out was that the current "Cloud" is simply a name change to make money.

All the Apps on the iPhone, etc. Are they better than what you can do on a PC?

In this world, nothing is free. The cost of running PC on Internet has not come down. It seems to be coming down because the usage limit has increased. The basic rate is still increasing.

The search engines are now showing more ads. to shield the real information, so that a user will see the ads.. The time needed to find what I want has increased. This is the real cost.
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I do not carry out annual simulation on EPlus. Therefore I do not need distributed computation.

I used the four season four day DesignDay simulation for most of my work. If a building does not use much energy for those four days and is comfortabale, it will be comfortable for the whole year.
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Large shopping centre, hospital, Hotel, airport, railway stations have special need in HVAC. The designer for these have sufficient resources and do not need to use the public Cloud. They will have their private Cloud with distributed processing, but not free for public users.
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I am really worried for our next generation. Thay may be deaf (iPod) and dumb (iPad) and communicate with one another by finger pointing throgh a Cloud (Face book, etc.).

ttyl.

Dr. Li

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