I am offering a half-day training for the upcoming eQuest/DOE-2 release that
will include many new features, including dedicated outside air systems,
variable refrigerant flow systems, and new sizing capabilities.
I have been working with J. J. Hirsch & Associates for the past several
years to develop and test these new features, and I am excited to share them
with the community!
More info can be found here:
http://www.buildingsimulation2017.org/workshops.html#WK-H02
Note that special discounted rates for lodging at the conference hotel are
applicable during the workshops. The deadline for discount hotel
registration is this Friday, July 14 (the web site still says July 7, but
I'm told that has been extended).
Hope to see you all there!
Doug Maddox, PE
Maddox Energy Consulting
Ah, great! The radio silence from JJH & Associates was making me think they were going out of business. I?m sure the DOAS improvements and coil sizing and modeling upgrades will be handy right away. The ability to declare non-standard coil entering air conditions and the use of a more realistic coil heat transfer routine will certainly make me more confident in some of our results.
So I downloaded the ?release candidate? version from a week or so ago to check on a few items. As far as I can tell, my favorite annoyance still exists in DOE-2.3. I cannot figure out how to control a VAV/fan-powered box system during unoccupied periods, so that for heating only the zone fans cycle on, but if cooling is required the AHU cycles on. This is a very common control mode of a very common system. As far back as I can remember, DOE-2.x has automatically managed the desired, similar modes if baseboard heating is modeled in a zone. It seems like this shouldn?t be that hard to implement. But maybe I?m missing something.
After dealing with mysterious ACM/Comnet default performance curves and other inputs for years, it would be nice if some of the documentation of these new features included information on the derivation of the default parameters. There is reference to a CPUC report in the VRF sections, but it does not show up in a web search, except to point back to the DOE2.com ftp directory for the document I?m reading. :)
Unfortunately the VRF system I?m modeling right now utilizes water-source ?outdoor? units. That doesn?t seem to be noted as an option or even under development in DOE-2.3. But that should be a pretty easy upgrade. Along with providing more control of CW flow in all water/ground source heat pumps and water-cooled condensing equipment.
Not to just be totally negative, I?m heartened to see that the VRF EIR-fPLR curves utilize the Bi-Quad with DT formulation, similar to the VSD centrifugal chiller EIR-fPLR representation. I think this should eventually be expanded to many of the EIR-fPLR curves used for VSD compressor-driven equipment, which includes RTUs and air-cooled chillers now. I know VRF is a hot topic now, but I find it?s easy for this business and others like it to jump on the newest ?revolutionary? change and ignore ?evolutionary? improvements to more conventional equipment.
Fred
Fred Porter, BEMP, LEED? AP
Principal Engineer
Sustainability Services
NORESCO
fporter at noresco.com
www.noresco.com