Research On Design-Development And Utilization Of Building Energy Simulation Software Based On EnergyPlus

This paper gives an overview of the development, popularization and application of domestic building energy simulation software. The author also analyzed the status and trends of research about energy simulation software overseas and he focused on energy simulation software EnergyPlus. EnergyPlus is a new generation energy simulation witch financially supported by US Department of Energy. The abroad researchers did a lot of studies in the building simulation field by EnergyPlus and some user interfaces for EnergyPlus are under developing. The domestic researchers also did some studies using EnergyPlus, but most of them are focused on using it in building energy and HVAC system simulation. A few domestic researchers try to optimize the interface and the simulation methods of EnergyPlus or to add new simulation modules those generally used in China.The author studied the design, developing and utilization of building energy simulation software based on EnergyPlus in this article. The author studied the data organization of EnergyPlus, designed a building energy simulation software using EnergyPlus as a simulation compute core and success in developing the first version. The modules, the user interface and the program construction are introduced particularly in this article. The study is a basically work of building energy simulation software based on EnergyPlus. The software development work can be carried on based on this work. The author is developing the next version with a software company, and the issuance time of the first commercial version in the schedule is august 2009. The author are trying to develop the software in a production, studying and researching combination way. This work is supposed to accelerate the building energy simulation software utilization in building design and to building a platform for research achievement using in engineering practice.The author also studied the influence of building envelop to HVAC system peak cooling load using EnergyPlus. The load depressing measurement under high solar radiation was analyzed. When the conductive coefficient of exterior wall is high,a exterior wall with low solar radiant absorptance can depress the peak cooling load a lot. But the effects of low-e glasses are not so good. The utilization of between glass shade and exterior shade can make peak cooling load decrease by more than 100w per square meter exterior window and it is worth to use. Peak cooling load reduction measures can also optimize the load range. That will make the HVAC system running more efficiently.