Whoa! Graphisoft announce EcoDesigner energy evaluation tool

[Anonymous]

http://www.graphisoft.com/company/press_zone/ecodesigner.html

I see that Graphisoft EcoDesigner for ArchiCAD12 has just been announced!

Sounds excellent!

Will be very interested to see further details when released.

[Erika Epstein]

500% margin of error?

[Dwight]

It is good enough for financial planners.

[Rakela Raul]

Their web page calls these products..."for the small engineering firms"....whats small ?? 200 people company ??

or this refers to 'small projects' ??

i would like a commitment from GS to carry this product for at least 5 yrs....... after the ductwork and maxom experience !!

[Anonymous]

Finally an honest "green" claim.

I wonder if they have been reading the newsletters my design liability carrier has been sending me. About every six months for the last five years they have been cautioning against designers making "green" claims that might come back to haunt them. What few long term post occupancy surveys that have been done indicate that actual performance vary widely from predications. Not 500%, but still significant enough to potentially bite.

As Kermit said, "It ain't easy bein' green."

Dave

[Anonymous]

Interesting, but remote from main steam solutions.

What is its market share in the HVAC industry, has anyone some data.


These solutions are evolving so fast and there are so many code issues and variations that I somehow doubt that a swedish company could keep up with it without an enormous time lag.


Presently I am using Trane's TRACE 700

I am interested...

[Anonymous]

I read more about it and have these questions

Could one select ASHRE walls ?

Has LEED methodology?

Could one analyze results based on different solutions and equipments from different manufacturers "

[Anonymous]

Hi!
The document Margins of error is a handout for a speech that I made that covered expected error margins for different kind of calculation methods.
And Yes with simplified calculation methods you can have that large error margins.

EcoDesigner uses VIP-Energys calculation kernel and for VIP-Energy we know that normally the result should be within 3%.
Professionals that uses VIP-Energy to analysis real buildings say that if the deviation is larger than 5% then you have either made an error in the model or you have dysfunctional building.

But do we have any idea what error margins we can expect from EcoDesigner.
Yes we have! We have many years experience in Sweden with a earlier much simpler system in collaboration with Graphisoft that did not have EcoDesigners functionality and for Swedish condition the typical result for this kind of very fast calculation where within 10%.

EcoDesigner should be accurate enough to give a clear picture about how the building will perform. How EcoDesigner will perform on a international level is something that I am very excited about since energy performance is not only the building but also user behavior and technical systems like MEP. If it is close to the conditions specified by us and graphisoft then you will have one hell of a piece of machinery for super fast and accurate enough energy calculation early in the design phase. Export the data to VIP-Energy and you also will have very accurate results for final review.

Thanks
Mats Ola Rasmusson
StruSoft AB

[Anonymous]

Hi again!

There was some questions about the EcoDesigners validation.
VIP-Energy is validated with this methods.

EN-15265
Is the test method for European standard for energy calculations according to EN-13790.
This test does not have anything at all to do with accuracy and calculation quality. Most types of software even static and simplified methods can easily qualify for test.

IEA-BESTEST
The mother of all tests for basic functions of the most important factors in energy calculations.
Only dynamic software can probably handle all major test cases.
Software that can not qualify for all test cases should not be used at all.

ASHRAE-BESTEST
ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 140-2001 (Yes it is a little old!)
Basically the same test as IEA-BESTEST with additional free floating tests.
To qualify for these tests the software probably have to be dynamic.

StruSoft-BESTEST
When the conditions starts to be close to passive buildings with thick insulations, different kind of heat recovery systems, solar panels and technical equipment like heat pumps then it gets impossible to calculate energy consumption with any level of accuracy with static methods. StruSoft-BESTEST is a validation method for this circumstances inspired by HVAC-BESTEST and developed by StruSoft AB to determine a software's ability to handle infiltration, heat recovery from ventilation units, sewer, solar panels, different heat pumps, special condition in the north part of the northern hemisphere and conditions north of the arctic circle where the suns shine 24 hours a day in the summer and it is dark in the winter. StruSoft-BESTEST was developed because other international test methods did not cover infiltration, heat recovery and Nordic conditions adequately.
To qualify for these tests the software have to be dynamic.

And more that 20 years of research and commercial use. Every part of all calculation models in VIP-Energy has also been verified against real buildings under real usage.

We are in the process to certify according to LEED and ANSI/ASHRAE 140-2007.

If there is anyone who know anything especially about the LEED process please let me know.


Mats Ola

[Karl Ottenstein]

Mats wrote:
EcoDesigner uses VIP-Energys calculation kernel and for VIP-Energy we know that normally the result should be within 3%.
...
But do we have any idea what error margins we can expect from EcoDesigner. ... for Swedish condition the typical result for this kind of very fast calculation were within 10%.

EcoDesigner should be accurate enough to give a clear picture about how the building will perform. ... Export the data to VIP-Energy and you also will have very accurate results for final review.

Hi Mats,

Thanks for joining this discussion! I am confused about the excerpts above. I'm encouraged that you think the error factor is so much lower than the link on the StruSoft web site. (I do not understand why that link is there, if those numbers are not applicable.)

If EcoDesigner uses the same calculation kernel as VIP-Energy, then how is it that VIP-Energy is so much more accurate? ... and what is it that VIP-Energy itself would do beyond EcoDesigner that a customer would want to export the ED data to VIP-Energy? How much other information must be provided to VIP-Energy to get that more accurate result?

In particular, even an error rate of 10% might be considered big, since it implies that if I run ED and get a 10% improvement with one variant (changing windows on one side of the building to better ones), I really will not know if I am seeing a real improvement or just the error rate. (Equivalently, that error rate might say that I would see an increase in energy of up to 10% even if I put in better windows ... which would not exactly guide the decision-making process.)

Thanks!

Karl

[Michael]

This is truly good news after the buyout of green building studio by autowho...

There has been a real vacuum for this obvious need in the Ecological Age by the designers creating the ECHO (an economic and ecological home) EARTH of the 21st century in a BIM world

Did anyone see the software demonstrated in San Francisco last week?