In this video, the new features of TRACE 700 6.2.6 are discussed, including automatic compressor breakout, the fan prm report and the new LEED report. The release of TRACE 700 version 6.2.6 includes a number of changes that allow the user to enter information more rapidly and without excess work.

While the program appears the same there are some differences located under "Create plants".

  If we click "create plants", the configuration button looks as it always has. However, select the cooling equipment tab and you'll notice that things look quite different. In the upper left there are additional fields that used to be located under the controls button. Because they were frequently used they are now located on the front page. One example is "Energy source" option was previously located under the controls button but is now located directly in the cooling equipment tab. More importantly, you'll see a new button called "Packaged energy breakout". It's not available for the categories of water cooled chiller or air cooled chiller, but for everything else, such as air cooled unitary, this button will become active once you hit the apply button. Change the units to packaged COP or packaged EER. In the video we give it packaged EER of 10 and apply it. Now the packaged energy breakout button is available. Upon clicking, it asks us for "Fan energy included in the packaged equipment full load energy rate". So what fans does the value of 10 EER include? In general it's the Primary fan and Condenser fan, but it also might be a Return fan, Exhaust fan and Optional ventilation fan. All you'll need to know now is what fans were included in that energy rate, rather than figuring it out yourself by doing the previous method of breaking everything into kW per ton and subtracting out these individual variables. Now you can put the nominal packaged EER or packaged COP on your air cooled unitary, water cooled unitary or water source heat pumps in TRACE 700. The final option is "Apply same fans for heat recovery energy breakout calculation?". If this were a heat pump, we're saying that the same exact fans apply to the heat recovery. Those are the key differences in the cooling equipment tab.

Note that not many fields changed besides the energy rate, which now has packaged EER and packaged COP, and there's an additional button here while some of the fields have moved to the front page of the tab. The heating equipment tab has also changed; the thermal storage type has moved to the top of the screen, and the controls have moved slightly as well.

  The remaining changes in TRACE 6.2.6 appear when we calculate a file. If we have a LEED file, in this case we have our proposed and our baseline, we want to go to our actions menu > change energy parameters. We choose "Reduced year", while those familiar with LEED know we would be using full year here, we're going to keep it at reduced year for simplicities sake. There's a new check box for the option "Close ventilation dampers during unoccupied hours?". This is new to TRACE 700 6.2.6, however when calculating a LEED file we want to check the box "Apply ECB/PRM rules to fan sizing?". We still have the option of ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2007(PRM Only) or ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2004. We'll stick with the 2007 option and click ok. Now go to calculate and view results.

The scan for errors button has some new computational skills added to it. Now it looks for some things that might be wrong with a LEED project.

Here we want to select "Performance rating method" as "Alternative 2" since "Alternative 2" is our baseline. Check the box for "Rotate and average PRM results" and we can click calculate. Once the calculating completes the view results screen will populate as normal. The reports that we're going to be looking at are under the analysis reports: the "LEED summary" and the "PRM Fan Power" report. If we preview first, TRACE automatically populates the LEED settings with some of the defaults. It contains the primary heating source, whether it's fossil fuel, fossil/electric hybrid, purchased heat, electric or other. Our ASHRAE Lighting compliance, whether its our Space-By-Space Method or Building Area Method. The new construction percentage, existing renovation percentage, quantity of floors and climate zone. We're also defining which his the proposed alternative.  Now we can preview our reports. you'll see we have a LEED Energy Performance Summary Report and PRM Fan Powered Details Report. The LEED summary report is broken down into sections starting with general information, which just has the details we entered in the LEED settings. The next section is the Space Summary, where the building occupancy types are broken down according to their room templates in the proposed building. It lists their conditioned area, unconditioned area and total square footage. Section 1.3 gives Advisory Messages similar to scanning for errors. If you have the wrong number of unmet hours, it's going to let you know in this section. The next page compares the proposed design versus the baseline design. Finally it give us in section 1.5 an energy type summary where it gives us a utility rate description and the units that entails. After that section 1.8.1 Baseline Performance - Performance Rating Method Compliance and section 1.8.2 Proposed Performance - Performance Rating Method Compliance, which break down the energy by component. Finally, it looks at the baseline energy costs by rotation and the proposed building improvement over the baseline building is the last thing illustrated. In the video we just copied an alternative, so we should not expect much savings. If we look at the PRM fan power details, this gives the fan information, system by system. In the video there is only one system so it lists the design airflow and the corresponding PRM fan power. The rest of the details are simply details needed, such as the fan motor efficiency, to show that you comply with the other standards.