9 - Create & Edit Schedules in OpenStudio

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All right everyone. Let's start with the OpenStudio main interface, again. In the last video, we actually provided some information for utility bills. Now, we are going to talk more on these schedules. The next tab, here. You can see, here, we are in the schedule step. Again, schedules, they’re kind of a OpenStudio resource. Again, as I mentioned to you earlier, you create them once, or, you actually upload them once, through the library method. You can update them, you can manipulate them, and you can just assign them again and again to multiple spaces, multiple load definitions, and all, all right. You can see we have multiple schedule sets, here. For each and every end use type, or actually, building use type. For example, there is a separate schedule for closed office, then conference room, corridors, IT rooms, lobby, open office, print room, and if you remember, we actually purged the unused information in a SketchUp plug in.

 

Or, in a SketchUp interface. You can, again, purge it if you need to, all right. If you look at one schedule set, let's just look at this closed office. You have a schedule provided for a number of people, which means occupancy schedule. Then activity schedule, which means, how much energy you are going to release in the atmosphere. A human being body actually released some heat in this space. For example, if you are walking compared to running, the amount of energy that you release in atmosphere is totally different. And, that's what you provide here, you provide the activity schedule. Are you just sitting in the office? Or, are you doing some kind of exercise?

 

For example, in an open office, you had a different kind of activity happening compared to a gym. Then lighting schedule, electric equipment, gas, and infiltration at the end, all right. You can actually edit these schedules in this schedule tab, here. You can see you have multiple schedules, there. Right now, as per your reference schedules, that we actually uploaded in SketchUp plugin. They're like similar for all the schedules sets. Basically, for your project, you either need to update them, update all of them. Or, you basically, or you can actually start from scratch. Just click on the plus sign, and then hit, start from scratch. We are going to work on multiple methods, here. Again, if you remember that chart, here, the inheritance hierarchy chart. You can apply schedules at different levels. Building level, story level, space type level, spaces directly, or internal loads.

 

The most appropriate locations to assign them, they are either at space types, or at spaces. You don't want to assign this schedule at building level or story level. Makes no sense, right. If you have six or seven different building use types, something like, office, restroom, and corridors. You don't want to assign this schedule at building level or a story level. The best option is space types, or directly add spaces. And, if there is a separate entity, let's say, something like, fish tank. You have a plug load of fish tank in your space, which is running 24 hours. Then you can assign a load, or actually a schedule directly at internal load, all right. Let's go back to our OpenStudio interface. Let's work on some of the methods. The first one is, just edit these existing ones. For example, I want to edit something for my restrooms.

 

I can either, like, you know, rename them. Something like, let's say, project San Fran underscore rest room schedule. You can just rename them based, or like, you know, project information, or your liking. That's why I like to rename them. I always use underscore or dash instead of this, space. Like, you don't want to like, rename them something like this. Hey, project San Fran space and then restroom. For the OpenStudio, you really want to either provide underscore or dash, okay. Definitely, very important thing. What if, if I want to update the number of people scheduled, okay. I'll just click on these schedules. And, look for this schedule here, which has been assigned here. And, number of people.

 

The name is medium office building occupancy. Go to schedules, you don't want to edit this one, like, the one which you've got through space type wizard. You want to make a copy of it. Because, if you make changes here, or the changes to implement to each and every schedule set, you don't want to do that. The best thing is, go to schedules, look for this occupancy schedule, the existing one. And, click on this X2 method. Copy selected object, click on it. And then, rename it something like, restroom underscore occupancy and schedule, okay. Again, if you are familiar with the energy modeling process, you need to provide these kind of schedules on the fractional basis. These are hourly schedules. They’re basically defined that, hey, like, how much activity is happening in the space for that particular load definition.

 

If it's 1, which means 100% and if it's 0, it means the 0% What if, if you have, let's say, occupancy of 50 people, on the peak basis. When you have load something like, let's say, from 8 to 10, as one, which means 100%. It means you have all 50 people in your space. During this, like, 12 a.m. to 6 a.m., you can see the occupancy is 0, the fraction is 0. If you multiply 50 by 0, it means 0 people. What if during lunch time you have a 0.5 of scheduled, or actually the, what do you say, the fraction of this schedule is 0.5. Basically, you multiply 0.5 by the peak load of people, or occupancy, which is 50. 50 multiplied by 0.5 is 25. During a lunch time, you have only 25 people available in the space, okay. Very important thing. These people are going to release a lot more heat in the space. You need to make sure that you have your schedules and load definition perfectly calibrated as per your inputs, okay.

 

Again, that's how my schedule looks like. Let me just explain to you this interface. It's very user friendly. Right now you can see the value. The range on y-axis is 0 to 1. And, from x-axis is 0 to 24, which means all the 24 hours, okay. You can actually create multiple segments in this line. You can just move them, like this, okay. You can move them vertically. You can move them horizontally. And, if you bring your cursor over any of this segment, let's say, this horizontal segment, which say 1 right now. You can see the value is 1. Bring this cursor, your mouse cursor, next to, actually on top of this line. When it's blue, just provide some value from your keyboard. Let's say, 0.75, and hit enter, boom. It went to 0.75. You can actually move them, like this. You can move it, like this.

 

These are hourly schedules. If you want to create the 15-minute based schedule, you can click on this 15 option. And then, you can change the properties. You just move this, this screen here. Let's say you want to make some changes from 6:00 to 6:30, okay. Double-click on this space here 15, 30, 45. I’ve created 4 segments for that particular hour. And, I can provide some values here. For example, from 6:00 to 6:15 my occupancy fraction is 0.25. From 6:15 to 6:30 my occupancy fraction is 0.4, hit enter. Then same, 0.6 for 6:30 to 6:45. And, let's say, 0.8 from 6 45 to 7, okay. That's how you can make changes. If you want to make changes in hourly, well and good. It's much easier. For example, I want to create something for 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. You can say this is 16 here. You need to be very precise, here. You need to understand how this thing works. After some practice, you'll be like, familiar with this, this interface. For example, I know if I click somewhere, here, I will, I can create a fraction easily. Double click here, and you can see this is separated out from this whole line. For this, I'm going to make let's say 0.6 from 4 to 5. My occupancy reduces to 0.6, hit enter. Or, you can actually move by using your mouse like this, okay. Either way is fine, okay.

 

You can see I made some changes, here, for my restroom, all right. What I am going to do now, I'm going to assign this schedule to my schedule set. For this this schedule set which is named as, Project San Francisco underscore restroom. Now, as I mention to you earlier, my new schedule lives in my model, it doesn't live in the library. I have created something in my model. It needs to be in my model, okay, here. In rule set schedules, you can see, this is where my schedule lives. We are going to drag it and drop it over this, this existing number of people scheduled. Again, drag and drop method. Click on this, just drag it over this number of people, and drop it. It will overwrite the existing one, okay.

 

Now, you can see we have a new restroom schedule, here, okay. Now, let's create something from scratch for lighting. I'm going to create something from scratch, not going to make a copy. Click on the plus sign, here, okay. It asked, hey, what is your schedule type? What is going to be a new schedule type? Well, if you click on this, this, this tiny window, you will see different kinds of schedule types. Dimensionless, fractional. I already explained to you like, what is a fractional schedule. Then you can have something like, activity schedule. I will create one activity level schedule for you. On, off schedule. What do you need for something like, for fans. If you have some kind of HVAC system, which gets on and off, you can, you need to create this on and off schedule. Then capacity, clothing insulation liner, power density, percentage, pressure, temperature. We will create some temperature schedules for thermostat, velocity, and so on.

 

Select fractional, for now. And, hit apply. And, now we can create some fractions, here. I'm going to rename it properly. Like, you know, something like, restroom underscore lighting schedule, okay. And, I'm going to bring everything to 0.1. Let's say, let's assume that during an occupied time, the schedule, the lighting schedule, goes to 10%, 0.1. And then, all of a sudden at 6 a.m. to 7 a.m., the lighting goes to 0.2. Then from 7 to 8 a.m., it goes to 0.25. And, at 8 a.m., people start coming to my spaces. Double click here again, one more time at 9 a.m., increase it to, let's say, 0.5. From 9 to 12, it goes to 0.9. And, from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m., which is lunchtime, my lighting power density reduces to 0.5. People turn off there light, their space lighting. And then, again, from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m., it goes to 0.9. Then from 5:00 to 6:00, when people start leaving the offices, it reduces to 0.7. Then from 6 to 8 p.m., it reduces to 0.5. Then from 8 to 9, during some cleaning time, it reduces to 0.35. And then, from 9:00 to 12:00 a.m., its 0.1, again, okay.

 

We have created a schedule, very basic schedule, here. Again, if you want to auto size your systems, you need to provide some design day profiles, as well. For example, during the winter, I mean, you can either copy the same profile, what you created. Or, you can create a new profile, let's say, like, we assume that during winters, please size my systems as if my light, like my restroom lighting, is 100% on. Which makes sense. Like, you want to size the cooling and heating based on that. Point one, actually, sorry, 100% for winter. And, for summer, you can either copy the winter designed day profile, or create a new one, again. I'm going to create, copy this winter designed day profile and add it. My design day profiles are there for lighting. I mean, don't like, you know, just design as if like, this, you can just like, you know, collect more information based on your own project. You can talk to your facility managers, or your mechanical engineers, or your lighting designers, to get all this information.

 

We are just doing some changes real quick. Just, like, you know, don't use everything, what I'm showing you here, okay. Go to default, just confirm this schedule again, all right. If everything looks fine, go to schedule sets, go to a project San Francisco rest room, from my model, again. And, bring this new lighting, and drop it, drag it and drop it over this existing lighting one. Now, we are going to create one more area, which is people activity. Go to schedules, again. Either you can just copy the existing one, like, for example, this is, medium office activity. You can see the default schedule is something like, 120. You can see the unit is watt per person, which means a person will release 120 watt per hour based on this schedule. You can increase it, you can reduce it. But, it looks fine to me, okay.

 

I'm going to use the library method now. I'm going to drag a default library template in my space, in my project. Click on this library, in the schedule rule set. Look for something, which is like, activity schedule. Just go through it. You can see this is, let’s just take this off, this activity, here. Drag and drop in your, this, like, on this left hand side bottom. You can see this box kind of thing, drag it here, and drop it here, okay. Now, we have provided some template, or actually, like, some information from library. You can rename it now, okay. Let's say rest room, rest room activity. And, let's just like, you know, reduce this 132 watt per person to 60 watt per person, hit enter. And, for winter and summer, as well. Same thing for you, even for designed day profile days, okay. Either you can drag it and drop it using your mouse, or just bring your cursor over this line. When it's blue in color, just provide some information from your keyboard. I'm going to hit 60, and then enter, okay.

 

Now, if you see, if you go to my model, you will see this new rest activity schedule, In this my model space. Go to schedule set, and go to my model, and that's where it is, rest activity. Drag it and drop it over this people activity, okay. We have created a new schedule set based on our own inputs. If you want to create some more, you can use all the, any of these three methods. I have explained to you something like, copy the existing one, or create something from scratch ,or provide something from your library, okay. There are multiple methods. In case you need to create a schedule set from scratch, exactly the same thing. Click on the plus, okay. When you click on the plus sign, it brings the like, empty template for you. The schedule set template. You can rename it. Let's say, we need to create a conference schedule set, like conference. Let me just rename it properly. Conference room, conference space type, underscore schedule set, okay. You can see everything is empty. Let's just bring something from the library. I'm going to like, you know, provide something from library first.

 

Let me just look for some schedule for people. From rules set schedule. Let me bring this office miscellaneous schedule. I mean, I can rename it, I can update it. Let me just bring this one first. Office work schedule. And then, people activity, office activity. Let's say, I want to create something from lighting. I can go to schedules, again. Create something from like, scratch. Create plus sign, fractional apply. Rename it to something like, conference lighting. And, this time, let's just assume that the lighting for conference is always on at 50%, okay. Now, go to schedule set in my model, again. Look for this conference lighting schedule. It is here in rule set, schedule sets. Drag and drop. Let me just go back to my conference schedule set. Drag and drop. And then, I can use some existing ones for electric equipment and infiltration, okay. Do this, and, what can I use for infiltration. Let me just see. There's one infiltration here, okay. All right, I have some information here. I can use this conference table set. I can assign it to, add space type, okay.

 

Right now, I haven't assigned this new construction set. I'm sorry, the schedule set, to my space type. It won't make any changes, okay. I can rename those space, those schedule names, for now it's okay. As I mentioned to you earlier, as for this chart, you have to assign these schedule sets, or schedules and any of these components. The most important component, where you should assign it at a space type level, that's what I'm actually trying to show you in this example. If you click on this, space types tab. Click on this, and you can see each and every space type has some kind of schedule set assigned, okay. For now, I don't want to confuse you, again. But, for now, let's just like, you know, drag the new information from my model to your space types, okay. When you go to schedule sets, here. You can see here. And, bring this new conference schedule set. Drag and drop, over the existing one. Look for the conference, here is it, boom. You can see I have a new schedule set for my conference space type. Now, because I have provided a new information to my space type, all the associated spaces will use this schedule set, now. And, the energy consumption will definitely change, all right. Very important here.

 

Let's do one more example, here. For example, I need to create a new schedule for one particular conference room. I have multiple spaces, here. Let me just go to space type, here. You can see, there are multiple conference rooms, here. Floor to conference, and, what else, conference three on floor one, there is one more conference room, 104 underscore W. Now, I know that for conference 104 on floor one, specifically for this space, I have to provide a new schedule. The occupancy is totally different, On first floor, the conference room has some kind of 100% occupancy from 9:00 to 12:00p.m. And then, again, 100% occupancy, from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. Rest of the time, there is no occupancy, it's 0. Well, this schedule is not followed for other conference rooms. What I need to do is, I need to create a separate schedule set for this. And, actually, assign it directly at space, not at space type. If I assign it at space types, all the associated conference rooms will also use that new space, new schedule set. And, we want to avoid that.

 

Let's go to the schedules, again. You know what, just copy this existing one. Rename it to something like, conference 104, schedule set, new. And, I just need to change the occupancy schedule. I just need to change this office for work occupancy, here. For that, go to schedules, look for this, office work occupancy. And, create a copy of it. Rename it to something like, conference room 104 people occupants, people schedule, okay. As for my, as for my inputs, that I got from facility manager, I have to provide a schedule of 100% occupancy from 9:00 to 12:00 p.m. Let me just remove all the information, here. Like, there's an occupancy from 6:00 to 7:00 and then 7 to 8. How can I remove all this information? What you can do, you can just go to these vertical lines, and double-click on them. And it basically deletes them, okay. Double click on this, again. On this, this, this, this. It removes all these segments. Now, everything is on 0.  Now, at 9 a.m., I'm going to double click, and at 12 p.m., again. And, for this, 9 to 12, I'm going to drag it to 1, which is, which means 100% occupancy. Then from 2:00 p.m., which is somewhere, here, and 3:00 p.m., and then, again, 100% occupancy. And, the rest of the time it is 0, okay.

Now, go back to your schedule set from my model. Look for this new schedule that you created for occupancy density. Drag and drop over this existing one, for this conference 104 schedule set. Drag and drop. Only this schedule set is following a new occupancy schedule. Again, you don't want to assign it at space type level. Remember, if I assign this new schedule set, here, all the associated spaces, and the conference spaces will use this schedule set. And, you want to avoid that. Go to spaces, and look for this new schedule set, this one here. And assign it directly here, at space level. I'm sorry, I actually assigned it at schedule set. Well, that's the mistake I did. Again, like, what I did, I assigned this schedule set at space type thing. Well that's, that is wrong. This is like, a separate entity. I was supposed to assign this schedule at this column, okay. What I can do, I can actually go back to my space types, again. Let me just find it, here. And, just bring this conference space type. You'll assign it here.

 

It actually, like, it actually brings all the low definition, here. We just need to make some changes for this schedule set. Not for the low definitions, okay. Go to schedule set, again. And, look for this new schedule set, this conference 104, one. Drag it, and drop it over this, second last column. And now, this new schedule set is overriding the values that you have provided at the space type level, okay. This particular space will follow this schedule set, okay. Save your model. And, you know what, I should just save a new copy now. Something like, version 7 schedules, okay. It's always a good approach to save a model after every half an hour. At least try to save a new copy, okay. Once I'm done with this, I can either run the simulation, or I can make some more changes. Looks like we are good for now. We can run this simulation, here. Is finished.

 

Now, let's see how can you bring more information for your schedules. Go to your schedule tab, again. And, let's refine your schedule for conference room, this conference 104. If you go to a schedule tab, here, and look for this conference 104 people schedule. You can see, we actually made some changes for 0 to 24. But, I did not explain to you what is happening here on the right hand side. What are these calendars, here. And, what if, if you need to create a separate schedule for a particular day. Let's say, if you want to have a different schedule, a different occupancy schedule for Saturday and Sunday, how do you do it. I'm going to create everything from scratch, again, you know. What I'm going to do, I'm just going to delete this conference 104 people schedule. Just delete it, and create something from scratch, again.

 

Let's say, add new object, fractional schedule, apply. Rename it to something like, conference 104 people schedule, okay. Bring everything from 0.3, the default value, to 0. Double click on 9, and then 12 p.m. Bring it to 1, then 2 p.m. to 3 p.m., 1, okay. You can see this, here, in the run per year profile, on the left-hand side. The default color is blue, the sky blue color. And, if you look at this calendar chart here, it means this default schedule has been assigned to each and every day. You can see, here. Now, if I click on this tiny plus sign, here, I can create a new profile. Just click add. Now, go to priority one, which is a magenta color. You can either rename it, like, let's say, Saturday schedule for conference 104. And, just select, Saturday, here. And, you can see, now this Saturday is magenta in color, which means, this new schedule will be assigned only on Saturdays. Bring everything at 0. And, let's just assume that there is a meeting happening from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. And then, let's say, some community meeting or something. And, the occupancy is 100%, all right.

Now, let's create a new schedule for Sunday. Because, what is happening? Right now, that default schedule has been assigned to Sundays, as well. Let's create a new run period profile for Sundays, as well. Now if you see, the magenta color is the priority one. And, priority two, which we created earlier for Saturday, is a blue color, or a dark blue color. Again, you need to make sure that you understand the workflow, here. The latest schedule will always be the magenta color, the colors will change, as per like, number of clicks that you have here on this, run period profiles. Now, select Sunday. Bring everything to 0, and that's it. Which means, on Sundays there is no occupancy. On weekdays, there is an occupancy from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., and then, 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. And, on Saturdays, there is 100% occupancy from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m., all right. And, let's say, we want to create a new schedule for summer break. From, let's say, 1st of June to 15th of June. There is no occupants in the building. We need to override these values, here. From June 1st to 15th of June.

 

You can see in these priority 1 & 2, the date range is from 1st of January to 31st of December. Create a new run period profile, hit add. Now priority one is a magenta color. Change the date range, I'm just going to use this calendar method. There's a tiny triangle, here, click on it, and go to June. Select June 1st. Same thing, here, for second range. Click to June again. Look for 15th of December, and select all the days. And, make this occupancy to 0. Now, you can see from June 1st to June 15th the occupancy is 0. Even for weekdays and weekends. Let's create one more schedule, just for fun. Like, just one particular day of the year. Let's say, on December 25th, the occupancy is 100% from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. There is some community festival, there. We have to create a new schedule. Add a new profile, click on priority one. Change the date range to, go to December, select December 25th. And, even for second date range, select December 25th. And, you can select all the days. If, you know, it makes your things easier, okay. And, I said like, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., the occupancy is 100%. And, if you refine it more, like, click on 15 minutes. Like, bring this window, here, cursor, here. And then, like, drag it, something like this.

 

You can use your cursor to drag it to 5:15 instead of 5:00 p.m. You can have one-minute schedules, as well. But, like, that's way more information than you need, all right. Now if you drag it down, you can see that particular day, December 25th, is a magenta color. Save this file. Go to schedule set. Click on this, conference 104 schedule. Go to my model. And now, drag and drop this new one, here, on number of people, which is, occupancy schedule, okay. And, this schedule will be used for the next calculation. Save your model. And, whenever you're ready, run this simulation, all right. Again, as I mentioned to you earlier, the preferred location to implement the schedules is at space types. And, if you need to change this schedule, particularly for one space, or, for internal loads, you can assign it directly. This value will override all those values assigned at the above levels, all right.