Welcome to the introduction to EnergyPlus, presented by energy-models.com. We are going to cover the basics of EnergyPlus.To follow along, you will ultimately need to install EnergyPlus. We have a separate tutorial here if you need help with installation.
We are going to discuss the basic features of EnergyPlus, why you should learn to use it, how it works, what features are available in EnergyPlus and how to use the program standalone. We will also discuss it's capabilities as well as the file types and file structure.
What this course covers
The first question most people ask is, "Why should I use EnergyPlus" or "Why should I learn EnergyPlus". For people that have heard of it, they have probably heard that it is very difficult to use without using a 3rd party interface. This is probably true.
However, EnergyPlus is currently being adopted into many existing and new applications. It's important to get an understanding of how it works. Since it is currently being funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and is scheduled to continue to be funded, it will ultimately be important for nearly all energy simulators to have a working knowledge of EnergyPlus.
EnergyPlus works on text input and text output. In between, there is a black box which is an EnergyPlus engine. This EnergyPlus engine takes an input file, that is text, processes it and then outputs the data in text format. For example, a user enters the basics of the building and energyplus will output the annual energy consumption, energy bills, as well as hundreds of other parameters such as zone temperatures and humidity ranges.
Since EnergyPlus uses this text-in, text-out approach, essentially any computer programmer can easily build applications for interfacing with energyplus. There are a number of user interfaces for energyplus that are built with the main intention of making it easier to use. If you start reading EnergyPlus resources, you will soon run into this phrase "GUI", which simply means Graphical User interface.
There are numerous Graphical User Interfaces, sometimes called GUI's, that are available. EnergyPlus can be coupled with whichever user interfaces that are easy for you to learn. What's important is that all interfaces ultimately take you to the EnergyPlus engine, at least at the detailed level. A very popular and increasingly powerful user interface is a plug-in to Trimble Sketchup called Openstudio. There are a number of others, but we will not be focused on the user interfaces for now. Regardless of your user interface, it is best to know the basics of EnergyPlus at it's core.
To get a basic understanding of EnergyPlus, let's consider its history. It is a fully integrated building simulation program that solves numerous components of the building. It's basically using the features of a program called Blast, which is a U.S. Department of Defense program from the earlier days of building simulation. However, it is much more advanced than the earlier counterpart and it has been updated to run on multiple operating systems. EnergyPlus can be run on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, as well as Macintosh and Linux. These versions are all downloadable per the how to install EnergyPlus video.
The basic concept of EnergyPlus is it's simplicity of structure. It's highly expandable. The basic shell for EnergyPlus, though basic in appearance, is very powerful in what it can do. The aesthetics are left for the third party programmers. The real computation power comes from the engine, which we call a black box because it's a very complex program. What you put into the black box is far more important than trying to understand the workings of the black box. You have probably heard of the expression, "garbage in garbage out". That is never more true than when working with energy plus. On the other hand, if you put "good stuff in, you will get great stuff out."
Creating your inputs is often made simpler by using 3rd party programs. These 3rd party programs, such as Openstudio, actually create an input file and then the third party can also make output reports, so you can essentially use EnergyPlus without ever really entering the basic EnergyPlus program. Ultimately, any user of Openstudio will want to simply run EnergyPlus on its own. Consider this: On its own, EnergyPlus has immense capabilities. The energyplus engine can easily simulate a700 room or zone energy model. However, if you are using a graphical user interface, even if it allows a building with 700 zones, it will likely cause trouble because a building with 700 zones might be difficult to open and will definitely run slower in the GUI. As another example, there are no limits to the number zones in EnergyPlus, but any graphical interface that you're using can add limitations. Now that you have a basic understanding of the Eplus Overview, there’s no better way to learn software than to see it in action, so let’s get started.
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