April 30, 2007—The US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Building Technologies program has officially released Version 2.0 of its award-winning EnergyPlus software. EnergyPlus’ sophisticated modeling engine equips building designers and engineers with state-of-the-art building energy simulation technology that identifies “extraordinary” energy savings and efficiencies for today’s low-energy buildings, says DOE. Key new features in 2.0 include green roofs, phase-change materials, and enhanced building controls, among many others.
Based on a user’s description of a building’s physical make-up and associated mechanical and other systems, EnergyPlus calculates heating and cooling loads necessary to maintain thermal control set points, conditions throughout a secondary HVAC system and coil loads, and the energy consumption of primary plant equipment. Simultaneous integration of these details—and many others—verifies that the EnergyPlus simulation performs as would the real building.
More than 50,000 copies of the EnergyPlus software have been downloaded worldwide since 2001, notes DOE. It is available to download at no cost on DOE’s EnergyPlus Web page.
