Ninth International IBPSA Conference Montr al Canada August 15 18 2005 CONTRASTING THE CAPABILITIES OF BUILDING ENERGY PERFORMANCE SIMULATION PROGRAMS Drury B Crawley1 Jon W Hand2 Micha l Kummert3 and Brent T Griffith4 1 U S Department of Energy Washington DC USA Energy Systems Research Unit University of Strathclyde Glasgow Scotland UK 3 University of Wisconsin Madison Solar Energy Laboratory Madison Wisconsin USA 4 National Renewable Energy Laboratory Golden Colorado USA 2 ABSTRACT For the past 50 years a wide variety of building energy simulation programs have been developed enhanced and are in use throughout the building energy community This paper is an overview of a report which provides up to date comparison of the features and capabilities of twenty major building energy simulation programs The comparison is based on information provided by the program developers in the following categories general modeling features zone loads building envelope and daylighting and solar infiltration ventilation and multizone airflow renewable energy systems electrical systems and equipment HVAC systems HVAC equipment environmental emissions economic evaluation climate data availability results reporting validation and user interface links to other programs and availability INTRODUCTION Over the past 50 years literally hundreds of building energy programs have been developed enhanced and are in use The core tools in the building energy field are the whole building energy simulation programs which provide users with key building performance indicators such as energy use and demand temperature humidity and costs During that time a number of comparative surveys of energy programs have been published ranging from comprehensive surveys of building energy simulation programs to reviews of single topics such as daylighting tools or energy auditing Yet in our study we found that no comprehensive comparative survey of tools had been conducted in the past ten years This paper provides a small excerpt from a much longer report which compares the features of twenty major building energy simulation programs BLAST BSim DeST DOE 2 1E ECOTECT Ener Win Energy Express Energy 10 EnergyPlus eQUEST ESP r IDA ICE IES VE HAP HEED PowerDomus SUNREL Tas TRACE and TRNSYS The developers of these programs provided initial detailed information about their tools This report by Crawley Hand Kummert and Griffith 2005 includes more than five pages of detailed references for the surveys mentioned above as well as for the 20 tools The report contains detailed tables comparing the features and capabilities of the programs in the following 14 categories General Modeling Features Zone Loads Building Envelope and Daylighting Infiltration Ventilation and Multizone Airflow Renewable Energy Systems Electrical Systems and Equipment HVAC Systems HVAC Equipment Environmental Emissions Economic Evaluation Climate Data Availability Results Reporting Validation and User Interface Links to Other Programs and Availability The detailed report is available on the web www energytoolsdirectory gov pdfs comparative pa per pdf OVERVIEW OF THE TWENTY PROGRAMS BLAST Version 3 0 Level 334 August 1998 www bso uiuc edu BLAST The Building Loads Analysis and System Thermodynamics BLAST system predicts energy consumption and energy system performance and cost in buildings BLAST contains three major subprograms Space Loads Prediction Air System Simulation and Central Plant Space Loads Prediction computes hourly space loads given hourly weather data and building construction and operation details using a radiant convective and conductive heat balance for all surfaces and a heat balance of the room air This includes transmission loads solar loads internal heat gains infiltration loads and the temperature control strategy used to maintain the space temperature BLAST can be used to investigate the energy performance of new or retrofit building design options of almost any type and size BSim Version 4 4 12 11 www bsim dk BSim provides user friendly simulation of detailed combined hygrothermal simulations of buildings and constructions The package comprise several modules SimView graphic editor tsbi5 building 231 simulation SimLight daylight XSun direct sunlight and shadowing SimPV photovoltaic power NatVent natural ventilation and SimDxf import from CAD BSim has been used extensively over the past 20 years previously under the name tsbi3 Today BSim is the most commonly used tool in Denmark and with increasing interest abroad for energy design of buildings and for moisture analysis DeST Version 2 0 2005 www dest com cn Chinese version only DeST Designer s Simulation Toolkits allows detailed analysis of building thermal processes and HVAC system performance DeST comprises a number of different modules for handling different functions Medpha weather data VentPlus natural ventilation Bshadow external shading Lighting lighting and CABD CAD interface BAS Building Analysis Simulation performs hourly calculations for indoor air temperatures and cooling heating loads for buildings including complicated buildings of up to 1000 rooms There are five versions in the DeST family DeST h residences DeST c commercial DeST e building evaluation DeST r building ratings and DeST s solar buildings DeST has been widely used in China for various prestige large structures such as the State Grand Theatre and the State Swimming Centre DOE 2 1E Version 121 September 2003 simulationresearch lbl gov DOE 2 1E predicts the hourly energy use and energy cost of a building given hourly weather information a building geometric and HVAC description and utility rate structure DOE 2 1E has one subprogram for translation of input BDL Processor and four simulation subprograms LOADS SYSTEMS PLANT and ECON LOADS SYSTEMS and PLANT are executed in sequence with the output of LOADS becoming the input of SYSTEMS etc The output then becomes the input to ECONOMICS Each of the simulation subprograms also produces printed reports of the results of its calculations DOE 2 1E has been used extensively for more than 25 years for both building design studies analysis of retrofit opportunities and for developing and testing building energy standards in the U S and around the world The private sector has adapted DOE 2 1E by creating more than 20 interfaces that make the program easier to use ECOTECT Version 5 50 April 2005 www ecotect com covering thermal energy lighting shading acoustics and cost aspects Whilst
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