The following are some of my personal views about the use of building energy
analysis programs on large and complex building projects. It focuses on the
approximate nature of energy analysis relative to the total building design
process at A-E design firms such as SOM. Building types at SOM include multi-use office building
complexes that include retail, high-rise hotels and residential buildings,
airport terminals, convention centers, performing arts centers, large shopping
malls, multiple buildings on a university campus or city district, hospitals,
etc. The views below are also approximate and not all of them may be
valid or accurate and some may be
questionable but I hope it will contribute to the discussions at the ASHRAE TC
4.7 meeting this month in Kansas City. I
will not be attending the meeting.
Varkie Thomas
Skidmore, Owings &
Merrill
To ALL Interested Parties:
In February, a very interesting exchange of ideas
occurred on BLDG-SIM@xxxxxxxx regarding
the limited use of building energy simulation in the early design
stages, thoughts on why its limited, and what might be done to
increase the use of simulations in the early stage of design. For those
who did not see this exchange or would like to refresh their recollection of
this, a compilation of these e-mails is found in the attached Word
file.
As the Chair of the Applications Subcommittee of
ASHRAE TC 4.7- Energy Calculations, I would like to invite anyone and everyone
interested in this subject to attend our next TC 4.7 Applications
Subcommittee Meeting which will be held on July 1, 2003 from 3:30 to 5:00
p.m.. in Kansas City, Missouri, as part of the ASHRAE
Summer Meeting. (See the meeting program for the meeting
location).
The subject to Getting the Design Team to Use
Energy Simulation from the start of Design Process will be our main topic of
discussion. The purpose of this will be to continue this exchange of
ideas and from there to create actionable items which will then be
implemented.
In some ways we've already started approaching
this item. At the Winter ASHRAE Meeting in Chicago, January
2003, we presented a Seminar entitled "Getting Started with
Building Simulation" which was chaired by Chip Barnaby. The
four talks were an excellent presentation of "what is energy simulation", "why
would I want to do it" and "what's available for doing it". The
third presentation - Allan Daly's presentation of "Using Building
Simulation to Life-Cycle Cost Optimize HVAC System Design at UC Merced"
is a case study of project which actually did use simulation in the very
early design stages. Copies of the PowerPoints from each of these four
presentations are available to download at the ASHRAE web site (www.ashrae.org ). From the homepage,
click on "ASHRAE Activities", then Technical Committees, then TC 4.7, then
Programs. Scroll down about a third of the page to previously presented
programs. The seminar was one of the best attended TC 4.7 presentations
in recent history (standing room only) which shows that a lot of interest is
there, we just need to do a good job of tapping into it.
We welcome the opportunity to broaden the
discussion and to broaden the participation. ASHRAE, with its 55,000
world wide members, Winter and Summer meetings with 2,500 to 3,500
technical program registrants, and over 160 local chapters, can provide
an effective venue for reaching the building design community. Our
successful "Getting Started with Building Simulation" seminar in Chicago and
the ASHRAE Profession Development Session on Building Simulation which is now
under development is only a start. There is much, much more which could
and should be done - and we welcome your ideas and involvement.
Some of our previous work identified the need for
a good basic treatise on what building simulation is, what programs are
available, who to contact, etc. As we research that subject, we were
pleased to learn that some excellent sources already existed and/or were
nearing completion. Let me appraise you of them so those who are
interested can get a good overview of what is currently available in the
building simulation (not just HVAC) arena. The Air-Conditioning and
Refrigeration Technology Institute (the research arm of ARI) has available on
its web site an report appropriately titled "State-of-the-Art Review,
Whole-Building and Bulling Envelope Simulation and Design Tools" It
available at www.arti-21cr.org There is
also a companion report which focuses specifically on HVAC Component and
System Simulation. For specific cost and who to contact
information on over 250 energy estimating programs, including most of the
simulations DOE maintains a very comprehensive website at www.energytoolsdirectory.gov
To help us plan a most productive session, I
would appreciate your ideas on what you see as:
1. The most
important or critical items that we need to discuss and try to reach
consensus in our meeting at Kansas City.
2. The most important actions or programs our
committee should be implementing in the short term (6 to 18
months)
3. The most
important actions or programs our committee should get ASHRAE to implement in
the longer term (1 to 5 years) This could well include research
projects.
For those who will be unable to join us in Kansas
City, I invite you to share your ideas via the BLDG-SIM@xxxxxxxx list server. I
would ask that you post those ideas by June 20th as my travel schedule will
make it difficult for me to print out material to distribute at the Kansas
City meeting after that date.
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