Dear all,

If you've heard too much about optimisation but never seen one in action, it is probably time to try your hands on jEPlus+EA. The brand new v1.4 is much more grown-up compared to the previous version. For one thing, it has now a proper GUI that allows you do more or less everything in one place... Here are some key features:
* A full-fledged optimisation tool for EnergyPlus users
* Out-of-the-box support for jEPlus projects, with user-defined objective functions
* Highly efficient multi-objective (up to 10!) optimisation method based on a customized NSGA-II
* Built-in remote simulation function through the JESS Client
* A scatter plot for inspecting individual solutions
* Frequency histograms for visualizing distribution of variables within the discovered solutions
* A table view for easy sorting and exporting (through copy-and-paste) of results
* Automatically saves solution data to avoid loss of work during a long run
* And, of course, full-featured command-line interface for automated optimisation tasks
Screenshots illustrating the key features can be found here: http://www.iesd.dmu.ac.uk/~jeplus/wiki/doku.php?id=docs:jeplus_ea:features_1_4. We are still working on the user's manual. However, the software is available, now. Please register on the website to download it. ...and, yes, it is "free".

Best wishes,

Dr Yi Zhang