Simulate building energy and model water use in buildings and energy consumption used for heating, cooling, ventilation and lighting. Simulate conditioned and unconditioned spaces, view heat balance-based solutions of radiant and convective effects. Use multiple built-in HVAC and lighting control strategies and view standard summary and detailed output reports.
A building is a real ecosystem of its own if you consider all energy flows going around. You need to keep it warm during winter and keep it cool during summer; you need to illuminate it, ventilate it, and so on. The challenge is clear: you need to provide all those services in the most efficient way and at the minimum cost. EnergyPlus - developed by the US Department of Energy - is an application designed to create simulations of buildings and all the energy flows inside of them, so that you can design them in the best way to accomplish your goals.
Since EnergyPlus is focused on the simulation engine and not on the interface and accessory tools. The application “speaks” the .txt language, meaning that it receives data from text files and produces results and reports as text files as well. If you are counting on a user-friendly interface, you can wait for a while until one of the on-going interface development projects finishes. There are also some extra tools you can use in combination with EnergyPlus - these projects come from the private sector so you may expect to have to pay a license for them. Speaking of licensing, EnergyPlus offers different types of licenses depending on the use it is going to be given. There are commercial licenses and non-commercial licenses. In turn, within the commercial licenses you will find end-user license (free of charge) and distribution license (you need to pay for the license).
EnergyPlus package includes the following two tools: IDF Editor and EP-Lauch, which you can use for creating, editing, and running input files. EnergyPlus Example File Generator is another tool which is under testing. It is a web-based application to help you in creating input files for EnergyPlus (remember, they are .txt files) for small and simple buildings; the files, once created, are sent to you by e-mail.
v6.0 [Oct 19, 2010]
General
Significant speed increases, up to 25-40% execution time reduction in most simulations, depending on specific features used.
Revised reference building example files (formerly benchmark buildings).
New detailed 130-zone hospital baseline and low energy example files.
Input
Zone lists supported in most internal gains, infiltration, ventilation, thermostat, and demand manager zone name fields to apply a single input object to multiple zones.
New lookup table object allows alternate performance input format to eliminate the need for regression analysis, can be used in place of existing curve objects, and can create curve objects.
Controls and User Functions
New dual-max control for VAV reheat terminal units with reverse acting damper and hot-water coil.
New maximum supply air temperature limit for VAV reheat terminal units.
New averaged setpoint managers allow control of supply temperature and humidity ratio based on requirements of multiple zones.
New setpoint managers that allow control of supply air humidity ratio of a central system serving multiple zones based on the critical zone humidification or dehumidification requirements.
New “All-Off” equipment operation scheme option added for plant and condenser loops.
Weather variables added as energy management system (EMS) actuators.
Output
New reporting of EER and IEER (in addition to SEER) for DX cooling coils with air cooled condensers.
Enhanced SQLite output to include error file content.
Utilities
New EP-Launch option to run multiple simulations simultaneously, taking advantage of multiple processors (Windows platform only).
Enhanced output file access in EP-Launch (Windows platform only).
IDF Converter (Transition GUI) can now save intermediate versions.
