IES Blog

The 2011 Annual ASHRAE Conference is in full swing in Montreal! The theme of this year’s conference is ‘Sustainability Knows No Borders,’ and that’s certainly the topic of discussion over the last few days.

The discussions I’ve been a part of have focused on the role of building performance modelling on new buildings – how can that interface with defining what EUI means in the US? More data is needed before this can be effectively determined, but we can certainly learn from the experiences of the European rating systems already in place.

(For more on the topic, I did some Googling last night in my hotel room and came across this slide presentation from another conference – EUEC – which you might find interesting. Take a look.
(http://www.slideshare.net/EltonSherwin/building-ratings)

ASHRAE knew we could learn a lot from other countries when they chose Montreal for this year’s conference. The city is known for bringing a bit of European charm to North America, blending cultures, languages and people from all over the world, culminating in a unique and vibrant joie de vivre.

ASHRAE couldn’t be more in line with that concept – their goal for the coming year is to partner with other international organizations in profound ways to influence energy policy around the world. They’ve already started, working with The Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) in developing the Building EQ rating program, which provides a technically sound tool that rates a build¬ing’s energy performance and helps to characterize specific buildings that are candidates for improvement.

Leading the charge in working with international organizations to make ASHRAE an international symbol of HVAR&C excellence is new president Ron Jarnagin and the board, which were all appointed at yesterday’s Presidential luncheon. The focus for Mr. Jarnagin is on developing leadership within ASHRAE and positioning ASHRAE as a global leader in energy issues.

That’s all for now, I’m heading into another session. If you’re at the show, share your thoughts with us below!

No Comments

Tags:ASHRAE, Building, CIBSE, Discussion, Modeling

www.e-architect.co.uk

When booking a venue for an event there is always certain factors that must be taken into consideration – location, capacity, availability and cost (no getting away from it in this current climate). But when we were looking for a venue in London to host the second of our free educational seminars, IES Faculty, we were also looking for somewhere that offered a certain je ne sais quoi. Being that the latest Faculty session is for Architects, we wanted to find a place that both promoted and reflected the inventiveness and originality of modern architecture.

We came across such a venue in Ravensbourne digital college. The building was designed by Foreign Office Architects and is a technology driven location which has been built to stimulate creativity. We were also impressed by the green credentials of the building, as Ravensbourne has invested heavily in the sustainability of the venue with a green roof, solar water heating and biomass boiler. The building has achieved an impressive BREEAM Excellent status.

So what do we have in store for architects coming to IES Faculty on the 12^th of July? In just a few hours we’ll show you how our solutions can help you enhance architectural design and productivity. See how to quickly produce early stage sustainability reports using our revolutionary architectural analysis tool, get up to date with our integration with Google SketchUp™ and be introduced to our new innovative step-by-step BREEAM Assessment tool. You can get more information and sign up on our website.

No Comments

Tags:Architects, education, free, IES, Sustainability, technology

Last week, we were invited to present at the Seattle Energy & Design Roundtable (SEDR) meeting. SEDR is a Seattle-based group of architects, engineers and other design professionals interested in energy efficient design and renewable energy in buildings. The group hosts monthly presentations that address energy and design related topics, including software tools, design methods and case studies.

Last week’s session was entitled, “Using IES Energy Modeling to meet the 2030 Challenge.” I was able to present an overview of the VE from VE-Ware all the way through VE-Pro, showing a project in the early phase design all the way through project completion and submittal to rating authorities.

But the best part of the presentation was when Dan Munn and Matt Glassman of DLR Group presented their first-hand experiences using VE-Gaia. DLR Group uses IES software for early phase design to help architects reach their Architecture 2030 goals. Dan and Matt were able to share how the team at DLR Group is able to do 7-hour energy modelling at early stages, using tools like the VE to educate architects on how to do it.

It’s certainly the highlight of my day when I can see the fruits of our labor at IES come to life on screen.

The event was a great opportunity for attendees to see real results of how our software has been implemented by users, and to ask questions in real-time. We also have a video of the presentation that we will post on the IESVE YouTube channel soon.

No Comments

Tags:Architects, Building, education, Engineers, IES, Modeling, Seattle, software, VE-Gaia, VE-Pro

Last month the UK-GBC set out to rally its members in support of their campaign to get the government to “fulfil its commitment made in March’s “Carbon Plan” and extend Display Energy Certificates (DECs) to Commercial buildings by 2012, using the Energy Bill as the vehicle to put down the necessary primary legislation”.

The first step of the campaign was to send an open letter to the Prime Minister, and other senior ministers, outlining the need for mandatory DECs for private sector buildings. You can read this letter here. The next step was for the UK-GBC to call on its members for their backing and a list of supporters was produced to reinforce the campaign. IES are very proud to be putting our name down in support of the UK-GBC’s efforts, and you can find a list of the other like minded organisations here.

Over the last few weeks there has been significant developments made as the Energy Bill reached the Committee stage. The UK-GBC and the British Property Federation have submitted evidence to the committee, provided the list of supporters and have been collaborating with MPs and other organisations to get this issue tabled as part of the Committee stage. A breakthrough came when Zac Goldsmith MP backed the campaign by tabling an amendment to the energy bill that would make DECs compulsory for commercial buildings, but there is still a long way to go to see if this campaign will be successful.

Our UK Division Head, Sarah Graham, had the following to say on the issue:
To meet our (the UK’s) C02 reduction targets existing building stock must be the priority.  Understanding and focusing on why buildings are not performing as they were designed to is key.  DECs when used in combination with EPC results can help highlight discrepancies and focus where further investigation is required.  DECs on their own can identify which buildings need a comprehensive energy review.  Going forward as well as rolling their use out more widely, linking DECs with legislation such as the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme should greatly enhance their effectiveness.

We will keep you posted with further news on this campaign as and when it happens.

No Comments

Tags:Building, DECs, IES

Seattle Space Needle

When you think about the “big cities” in the U.S., and the ones that are usually at the forefront of trends, you usually think of New York City and San Francisco.

But Seattle?

According to a recent article in Sustainable Industries, Seattle is proving to be a powerhouse when it comes to energy efficiency in commercial buildings.

“Seattle’s buildings provide one of the greatest opportunities to generate energy savings and boost economic development for the city,” Department of Planning and Development director Diane Sugimura said in a news release. “This new program will help building owners take a key step toward increasing building energy efficiency, which, in turn, helps lower operating costs, makes buildings more competitive and creates good local jobs.”

That’s what it’s all about after all. Increasing energy efficiency within buildings for a truly sustainable future. The savings in terms of money is a bonus.

Next week, Seattle Energy & Design Roundtable will be hosting an event at the US Bank Center Building. Our U.S. Business Development Manager Nathan Kegel will be discussing VE-Gaia from early phase design all the way through project completion and submittal to rating authorities. Dan Munn and Matt Glassman from DLR Group will then present on how they used IES VE for early phase design and highlight training programs used at DLR to help architects reach the Architecture 2030 goals.

Speaking of Architecture 2030, the Architecture 2030 District mentioned in the article certainly sounds like a model for success. I’ll be interested to see the successes there.

So we’ll be keeping our eyes on Seattle and the many other cities developing and implementing energy efficiency standards for commercial buildings. It’s an exciting time for sustainable design!

No Comments

Tags:Architecture 2030, DLR, IES VE, Seattle, Sustainability

Just two short years ago, we started a LinkedIn group called IES VE Users. The goal was to have a central location on the platform for users of our <Virtual Environment> suite of sustainable building performance analysis products (VE-Ware, VE-Toolkits, VE-Gaia or VE-Pro).  Somewhere to share ideas and thoughts – anything from BIM to green building, Revit or SketchUp to energy analysis.

We were hoping people would start to use it as a place to collaborate.  A way to meet others using our software and answer questions about it, performance analysis and related building physics in real time.

And we are overwhelmed just a few years later! Our group has grown to more than 1,000 members. We’ve got architects, designers, engineers and consultants.

The comments and posts that come from other group members are interesting and drive discussion, but we want more… so please join in and participate.

Popular discussions have been about natural ventilation, use of our software to undertake LEED Energy modeling, BREEAM Daylighting and feedback from conferences.

So join our group! And start a discussion. We’d love to hear what you have to say.

Our group is also a great way to stay up-to-date on the latest IES announcements, including trips around the world by our staff, product updates and promotions

No Comments

Tags:Discussion, LinkedIn, VE

When I was at the airport recently, almost every billboard seemed to be hijacked by the Microsoft marketing team promoting “Azure” and CloudPower (their latest Cloud Computing tech). You’d think it was something new! So what is “The Cloud?” Well, it’s just a term which means that you handle data and software somewhere other than your computer, via the internet. All the work goes on in some servers in California, Pune, Beijing or anywhere else except your computer in front of you. A web page provides the interface for this to happen.

Why is “The Cloud” such big news?
Having other people’s servers do all the work for you from a web page has been going on for years. When the two guys who started Google launched the first version of their search engine in 1998, it was one of the first proper Cloud Computing applications. The user typed some text into a web page, which was then transferred to a few computers sitting in a little garage in Palo Alto, which crunched the search numbers and posted the results back on the same page. In 2007, just nine years later it was estimated that Google had approximately 1 million servers. Why did it get so big so fast ? Simply because they worked out the fastest way of searching the internet, and then integrated low-cost advertising when it became really popular. Advertising revenue was $30billion last year. It’s the most stratospheric rise in computing history.

What can it do for me?
Web pages for cloud computing apps have been springing up across the web for some time. Many of you get mail through Gmail. Google Docs is starting to rival Microsoft Office for personal document editing. In some ways it’s better – because it’s on The Cloud, you can work on your document with friends together, store different versions of it, and know that someone else looks after it and keeps a copy. A couple of other really neat applications are free photo editing (www.pixlr.com) and free movie editing (http://jaycut.com/). The whole approach keeps the cost of software down, and you don’t have to install it either.

No Comments

Tags:cloud, internet, technology

This month’s question and answer comes directly from a discussion that was taking place on our LinkedIn IES VE user group. The group acts as a great platform for users to share their knowledge, experience and opinions and we have recently reached over 1,000 members (Go us!). The question that features in this edition comes from Ciaran McCabe, a thermal modelling consultant using the VE in Ireland. The answers were kindly provided by Rosemary, our BREEAM expert.

Do you guys tend to use IES VE Radiance or Flucs DL to measure daylight factor and uniformity to demonstrate compliance with BREEAM HEA 1? Flucs DL is a much faster module to use on larger buildings. Any opinions on this topic welcome.

We would tend to use FlucsDL for large buildings as all the rooms can be analysed at once. For BREEAM I would recommend that you set up rooms groups so that you have “occupied” and “unoccupied” rooms grouped together. The “occupied” rooms can then be selected and average daylight factors/uniformity output produced.

I now see there is a new feature in Flucs DL which deals with Sky View. Sky view at 0.7m is one way of demonstrating compliance with BREEAM Hea 1 - Daylighting. I was just having a play around with this recently and wondered if this feature is fully operational or is it still being tested. Is there any documention on how the VE calculates sky view? I suppose what I am getting at here is if I was to use this feature I would need some way to validate the result.

Sky View was included in FlucsPro and FlucsDL for BREEAM HEA1 Daylighting purposes; however it is active whenever you have performed a daylight calculation. If there is a direct line from any point on the sky grid to any point on the working plane grid (through windows and openings but without passing through any obstruction) then that point has a sky view of 1. If not it has a sky view of 0. Using a threshold value of, say, 0.5 will allow you to see the percentage area with a sky view. It is easier to see the levels if you are not in contour view (choose filled contours or grey-scale instead).

To have your question featured in our monthly Questions & AEC series, just get in touch with us on Twitter, Facebook or drop me an email at john.goucher@iesve.com.

No Comments

Tags:aec, BREEAM, daylighting, IES, LinkedIn