I personally disagree with contentions in this posting that "The
history of DOE and the national labs in creating and releasing such software
is not very good" and that "the DOE is spending our money to
create new code and have arguably abandoned the multi-million dollar
investment in previous DOE2.x development". 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. The multitude of published studies and successful use of the
program in commercial world, including numerous PC implementations and user
friendly implementations (including PowerDOE) clearly proves this
point. Not only was it useful in U.S., but it is widely used world
wide helping achieve better energy
efficiency of buildings in the process.
As
far as I know neither DOE nor EnergyPlus have any planned user interface
(other than arcane input file format). That is left to commercial
world, including Jeff Hirsch, to put into PowerDOE. 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. Also, EnergyPlus doesn't mean abandonment of DOE 2 program, it
rather builds on strengths of BLAST and DOE2 programs, and basically
streamlines government money, which was to some extent wasted on the
parallel effort to develop two different programs for the same
purpose.
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. I believe that many current developers will use this
opportunity and by the time the program is released (planned for beginning
of next year), we will likely have number of commercial programs that will
incorporate user friendly interface.
This is not the first time that government is
accused of "wasting tax payer dollars" by funding these kind of
projects. Being in the field of fenestration research, sponsored also
by DOE, I heard this kind of argument all too often from various
people. However, whenever I look back I see literally tens of billions
of dollars saved by having government "push" the envelope and
industry, by spending, oh... maybe $100 million over the past 20
years. What a return on investment! I don't have data on the
impact that DOE 2 had in the past 20 years, but I bet that they are not far
off. I have no doubt in my mind that EnergyPlus is going to continue
this path of excellence. And I am talking only about dollar
savings. How about improved quality of lives by having more
comfortable homes, and by having less pollution?
For those who would like to learn more about
EnergyPlus (and other simulation programs) there is going to be IBPSA
meeting and software demonstration in Dallas in conjunction with ASHRAE
meeting on Saturday, February 5 from 4 to 7 p.m. in Pullman A Room at Hyatt
Regency Dallas. It is open to anyone.
Regards,
Dragan Curcija,
Senior Research Scientist
University of Massachusetts
Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable
Energy
Engineering Lab
Building
Amherst, MA 01003-2210
TEL: (413) 545-4454
FAX: (413) 545-1027
email:
curcija@xxxxxxxxx
www: http://www.ceere.org/faculty/curcija.html
Most of you are undoubtedly aware of the recent controversy over
DOE2.2 PowerDoe and EnergyPlus. I know that many people on this list are
actively involved in one or more of these programs.
I think this list is as good a place as any to start a serious
discussion about where things are going, why, and how we (users of the
tools) feel about these things.
I'll start by boldly stating that I don't believe EnergyPlus will
provide a truly useful (on-the-ground useful) tool for many years to
come. The history of DOE and the national labs in creating and releasing
such software is not very good.
Are the labs and developers trying to create a product useable in
a competitive design consulting world? The last thing we need is another
arcane simulation package with no front end or post processor - been
there, done that. Perhaps new algorithyms and advanced coding are needed
but without the interface they won't help me at all. I'd rather use the
`older' ones and keep the ability to show designers what I'm doing.
One more comment and question - the DOE is spending our money to
create new code and have arguably abandoned the multi-million dollar
investment in previous DOE2.x developent. Is this the best use of
taxpayer money?
Come on everybody - don't be afraid to weigh-in on this - let's
hear your thoughts!
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