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The frustrating thing for any DOE2 user who's been using the program since it was CalERDA is that some real progress has developed over the last few years with 2.1E, 2.2, and PowerDOE. Now it appears that the progress will be put on hold as we patiently wait several years for EnergyPlus. The timing is especially bad as more clients who are interested in "green"
design look towards building energy modeling.
Mike Andelman
Jeff Hirsch wrote: A couple comments on those of others ... fuel for the fire, or stir up the hornets Quote: "First let me state that from all available evidence, the whole DOE (and here DOE is the name of the program - what a strange choice for program name, BTW) effort is one of the most successful undertakings in a brief history of computer program development and represent well spent government dollars by any standard." Comment: First, all the contributors to DOE-2 thank you for your kind words.The name was chosen, against developers advice, by USDOE, shortly after thecreation of the Department, to replace the programs existing name; previouslythe program was named CalERDA for the Calif. and ERDA (one org. movedinto the new DOE) who supplied the early funds. DOE-1, DOE-2, DOE-2.0A,DOE-2.1A, DOE-2.1B and DOE-2.1C (1977-1986) were mostly paid for byDOE with small contributions from others. DOE-2.1D (~1988) had smallishpercentage of private contribution. DOE-2.1E (~1994) was about half privatecontribution (mostly my company) and DOE-2.2 (current) is mostly privatecontribution (mostly my company). DOE-2 would not have come into existencewithout the State and Federal government very large investment; surprisingly largecompared to similar private projects of the time; comparing public vs. privatecontributions must be done using project output not $ input. DOE-X only "took off" after private firms adopted and invested heavily: firstjust PC ports like the defunct SI, Inc turned into Acrosoft, and ADM; then ourPC ports with many new HVAC/Economics/EndUseReporting 2.1E versions;then interfaces Comply24, VisualDOE, EZ-DOE, etc. This ivestment only happensif firms can make $ from such efforts. Such return on investment is not possibleunless licensing gives those investing the time and $ the ability to benefit from theirinvestment. So, we owe DOE and CA/CEC thanks for making it possible that DOE-x exists, butowe the thanks to the private sector companies that took the somewhat deflatedball, added much air (hot at times) and ran with it. Quote: "It seems to me that there is a quite a bit of confusion about PowerDOE, which is in my opinion, very good program. PowerDOE is nothing more than good pre and post processor, which can have DOE 2.2 or EnergyPlus as underlying engine." Comment: Again, the PowerDOE development team thanks you for the kind words.PowerDOE interface code was developed by my company with $ only from EPRIand our own investment (85% vs. 15%). LBNL participated, with many otherorganizations, in design meetings for the PowerDOE user interface. The PowerDOEinterface is not just a "pre and post processor" for DOE-2; it is a full interactiveimplementation of DOE-2's BDL processor (which is somewhat of a table driventable generator whose internal design is only applicable to just DOE-X, but anyapplication that requires extensive input organized into object tables.) EditingPowerDOE data screens is editing BDL memory in real time including the dynamicrecalculation of parameter defaults (like a very large spreadsheet with a formula inevery cell; thus the slow down - geometric- as problems get very large.) ThePowerDOE name was suggested by LBNL as they did not like our original winDOEname; PowerDOE name was okayed by DOE, then accepted and trademarked byEPRI (oops! - an poor choice of move motivated by political infighting amoungst theEPRI/DOE/LBNL/JJH team). I have licensed the use of the name and EPRI ownedinterface code from EPRI for further development and commercial distribution. Quote: "EnergyPlus is an open source program, and alpha version is just being released. For measly $100 (I think) anybody can get license agreement and build commercial strength pre and post-processor to it. "Comment: EnergyPlus is NOT open source; but it should be, in my opinion, using UC's(LBNL is managed by UC for DOE) own BSD (Unix) type license since it is developed(almost?) entirely using public funds. Why a fee; why not freeware like our basic DOE-2versions? No published distribution licenses yet; and if these become available and have aper copy royalty, there can be no freeware products that are EnergyPlus based unless LBNLdoes them - in which case why would any private sector firm invest the time and $ to competeagainst the government funds. We could adapt both the PowerDOE and eQUEST (freeware)interfaces to EnergyPlus in a straight forward manner fairly quickly; we cannot do this withoutopen source licensing and a working, supported (commercially viable) complete product - acouple years away at best. I'm sure Eley can do the same with the VisualDOE interface andEnergySoft with EnergyPro and so on; DOE has no business funding work that so manyprivate firms are already doing and can do better; a similar argument can be made forDOE's getting out of the engine business where the result is in "product" form rather thanNMF model library or "component toolkit" form. The private sector can take the correctnext commercial product steps, better, cheaper and faster (and also provide the requiredproduct marketing and support.)Quote: "Sorry for the rant, but I'm also getting tired the people who think they can |
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