IES Blog

Well, we made it to Chicago. We weren’t going to let a little “winter storm warning” stop us from the biggest HVAC show of the year!

The energy has been great at the show so far – lots of excitement for the industry. Prior to the floor opening, there was big news from ASHRAE. The go-to source for standards and education for this industry, ASHRAE got a facelift, complete with a new logo and a new tagline…

Shaping Tomorrow’s Built Environment Today

Given our focus at IES this year, we are thrilled to see ASHRAE’s commitment to pushing the built environment in the 21st century. As ASHRAE President Ron Jarnagin stated, “integrated design is the cornerstone of sustainable buildings.” As the ‘Hub’ for sustainable design advancements, we look forward to joining ASHRAE in the conversation, promoting the importance of utilizing quantifiable performance information to design truly sustainable buildings.

We’ve also been following the conversation on Twitter. Kimberly Schwartz, managing editor of The ACHR News, tweeted a great picture (http://pic.twitter.com/6u2IsRSd) from the show floor yesterday afternoon, adding “…the aisles are still crowded! There’s a good buzz in the air.”

But the highlight of our day yesterday? Well, we’ll just let the image speak for itself…

See you on the show floor!

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Tags:AHR, ASHRAE, Building, chicago, design, energy, Environment, event, HVAC, IES, Sustainability, Twitter

If we’ve learned anything from recent headlines, it’s that energy efficiency and sustainable design companies have to spend big money if they hope to develop the next big green solution. With today’s rapidly advancing technologies, millions of dollars in government-backed loans and venture capital appear to be crucial. But is all of this really necessary?

One of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s latest endeavors, referenced in a recent International Business Times article, is taking a different approach. As part of its People, Prosperity and the Planet (P3) Program, the EPA has awarded 45 grants of $15,000 each to colleges and universities across the United States. Students will use the money to design solutions for everything from water, energy and agriculture to the built environment and chemical use. The program’s overall goal is to “improve quality of life, promote economic development and protect the environment.”

What I find exciting about this particular EPA program is that it is set up as a competition, which is helping to spark innovation and excellence.

After working on the project for eight months, the teams will take their designs to the 8th Annual National Sustainable Design Expo on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. At the expo, the projects will be judged by a panel of experts and a select few will be awarded P3 Awards and Phase II grants up to $90,000 for students to further their designs, implement them in the field, or move them to the marketplace.

When it comes to new sustainable technologies and solutions, perhaps the companies developing them should prove themselves first. Competing for funding, just as participants of the P3 program are doing, will not only be conducive to better products and services, but also safer investments when it’s time for investors to take out their checkbooks.

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Tags:competition, design, Environment, Green, students, Sustainability, technology

This year’s Greenbuild theme seems particularly appropriate to us. Since our formation in 1994, IES has always been involved in the ‘What’s NEXT’. Back then, we took academic performance analysis thinking and technology, and created the first commercially viable suite of performance analysis software. Our expert consultants also worked closely with early adopters on its implementation and incorporation into the design process; helping to establish the backbone of today’s simulation market.

It was our involvement in these seminal projects which really set the stage for us, projects such as; Heathrow Terminal 5 right from the earliest concept stages, and BA “Waterside” Headquarters near London Heathrow. Since then IES has attained a unique position in the global marketplace delivering world-leading analysis expertise to help produce sustainable buildings.

For almost two decades, we have been pushing the ethos of integrated design and incorporation of performance analysis right from the earliest new-build and retrofit stages as the route to achieving truly sustainable, low-energy structures.

Now as the sustainability market is starting to catch up with this thinking, I’m seeing organisations beginning to understand the value and benefits of the IES approach. Consequently, we find our role changing. Increasingly organisations are coming to IES to help overcome technical or commercial barriers in getting their sustainability products and services to the market.

Consequently, we find ourselves today still working at the leading edge of building science, investigating how analysis plays a vital role in cutting through greenwash to deliver measurable sustainability. Whether that is designing or analysing a product range, regulatory system, building or entire communities/eco-cities.

IES has been approached in this capacity by Governments, ESCO’s, Venture Capitalists, software companies, product manufactures (both building and clean energy), regulation setters, voluntary rating system developers, and those managing large property portfolios.

So what’s NEXT? I certainly see this as the start of a new age in the role of analysis in a low-energy, zero-carbon built environment, as well as in the role of our company. At Greenbuild this year I’m spending a great deal of time discussing these developments and how I think analysis will develop and change the future face of sustainable cities and buildings.

Part of this is presenting at the GreenTech@Greenbuild event this Thursday 6th October. This is an exciting new event organised by the USGBC and Regenerative Networks which is designed to increase awareness and adoption of emerging disruptive technologies that provide exceptional solutions for the building industry.

Featured firms were selected for the significant advances they contribute to green building, so needless to say I was excited by the invitation. Watch this space for a recording of my presentation.

Or come along to our booth #2325N and say hello. I’m more than happy to discuss our innovation and expertise in creating cutting-edge building performance analysis tools, as well as the supply of related consulting and specialist services.

Plus, you can catch up with executives from Halcrow, Doo Consulting, Perkowitz + Ruth Architects, Building Momentum Group and Ambient Energy. Who will share first-hand insight on analysis and integrated design:
Wednesday, October 5
1:15 p.m. – “Analyzing Double Skin Façades for Different Global Climate Regions” (Halcrow)
2:15 p.m. – “Early Conceptual Analysis of the Brickstainable Winning Design” (Doo Consulting, Perkowitz + Ruth Architects)

Thursday, October 6
1.00 p.m. – “LEED Energy & HVAC Modeling of Roosevelt University Vertical Campus” (Building Momentum Group)
1.45 p.m. – “Optimizing an Atrium – Daylight and Mixed Mode Ventilation on Colorado State University Engineering II Building” (Ambient Energy)

Read more about our activities at the show here.

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Tags:Architects, design, Engineers, Environment, event, Greenbuild, IES, LEED, Modeling, Sustainability, sustainable, USGBC

If I was a betting woman…

I’d bet on clean energy.

Las Vegas hosted the National Clean Energy Summit 4.0 last month, and none other than Vice President Joe Biden himself was there to pledge allegiance to green cars, photovoltaics and wind turbines. He seemed sincerely passionate about the need for a renewable energy revolution. The event was held at the LEED Gold-certified Aria CityCenter, which looks like any other casino resort, but is far from it. What you can’t see is the waste heat co-generation facility, the water conservation efforts, the fresh air circulation or the electric vehicle charging station. Yes, at a casino. In Las Vegas. CityCenter’s commitment to the environment remarkably demonstrates that a community can be both beautiful and sustainable.

“Imagine if the U.S. was the first country able to make solar power that is cheaper than coal. Imagine lithium-ion batteries made here that are capable of carrying an electric car 300 miles or more. Imagine being able to capture waste power from factories and vehicles and convert it to electricity. I think we’re going to see stunning breakthroughs.”
-Joe Biden

These innovations will help the U.S. by spending less on imported oil from other nations, focusing our efforts to continue pushing the envelope when it comes to clean technologies.

There was also a panel presentation. Newly elected Nevada governor Brian Sandoval said that the state has made a commitment to use 20 percent renewable energy by 2020. If other states would piggy back off Nevada’s commitment, we would be on our way to a more sustainable America. (And well before the Architecture 2030 deadline, too!)

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Tags:Environment, event, Las Vegas, LEED, Renewables, Sustainability

Architecture 2030 is somewhat of a “hot topic” around the IES offices. There’s always something new to talk about as it relates to the goal focused of protecting our global environment by using innovation and common sense to develop solutions to the increasing problem of global warming.

I recently came across this article on Daily Commercial News by Wayne DeAngelis. In his article, titled “Time to re-think energy use and production,” he gets to the core of what Architecture 2030 is all about.

When American architect Edward Mazria first pondered the notion of what architecture would be like in the year 2030, he was no doubt well aware of the struggle that lay ahead in terms of carbon dioxide emissions, building waste, brownfields, greenfields and the usurping of this planet’s precious finite resources such as water, land and air. Yet he may not have anticipated the momentum “The 2030 Challenge” would initiate.

We’ve quoted Ed Mazria before. I think this quote from a few years’ ago is worth taking another look.
“We tend to rush toward the complex when trying to solve a daunting problem, but in this case, simplicity wins. Better buildings, responsible energy use and renewable energy choices are all we need to tackle both energy independence and climate change,” said Mazria.

And that’s just the thing. In order to tackle climate change and build sustainable buildings not just now, but for the future, we need to stop and take a step back. Simplicity at its core is something we should practice in many areas of our lives, especially design. Rather than building massive buildings that are underutilized and aren’t energy efficient, we need to take a look at the earliest stages of the design process and ask ourselves, “What is the goal of this building?” Many times, the answer helps guide the design and its ultimate simplicity.

We’ve got just under two decades to get to Architecture 2030. Can we do it?

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Tags:Architects, Architecture 2030, design, Environment, IES, Renewables, Sustainability

Every year, The Princeton Review issues ranking lists for colleges and universities. Everything from ‘Best Career Services’ to ‘Top Party School’ (this list always gets quite the online buzz).

And for the past two years, The Princeton Review has added a ‘Guide to Green Colleges.’

The second annual Green Colleges guide was compiled in response to growing interest among students and families in how universities are making their campuses and curricula more sustainable.

“College-bound students are increasingly interested in sustainability issues,” said Robert Franek, Senior VP, Publishing, The Princeton Review. “Among 8,200 college applicants who participated in our spring 2011 ‘College Hopes & Worries Survey,’ nearly 7 out of 10 (69%) told us that having information about a school’s commitment to the environment would influence their decision to apply to or attend the school.”

Each profile within the guide features “Green Facts,” showcasing the school’s recycling, use of renewable energy, and conservation programs.

Nationwide, there is a growing interest in sustainability among teenagers, and this is translated in their desire to attend a university that offers not only excellent curriculum, but a focus on the future. At a time when getting into a university, any university, is becoming more competitive, it’s interesting to see the shift in thinking as students look to apply to schools.

As universities continue to jump into sustainability and offer more design courses and majors in these growing fields, it will be interesting to see how the ‘Guide to Green Colleges’ evolves. Maybe one day it will be the most talked about ranking from The Princeton Review every year. Although there will always be the party list…

In case you missed it, IES is offering colleges and universities around the globe free Academic Licenses for our early stage analysis tool VE-Gaia. This is an ideal opportunity for educators to embed sustainable analysis into their curriculum. Any institution offering Architectural or Sustainable Design courses will find this tool invaluable, as students continue to look to sustainable design as a career choice.

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Tags:Academic, careers, education, Environment, IES, students, Sustainability, VE-Gaia

As a keen live music lover I spend a lot of my time going to gigs and festivals throughout the year. A lot of the bands I see in Glasgow are usually stopping off as part of a UK tour or on some occasions, a worldwide jaunt. It got me thinking about the huge environmental footprint that could be left behind by tours – flights, a convoy of busses for crew and equipment, venue emissions and gig goers waste. Safe to say a pretty big footprint eh? I decided to take a look and see if there are any bands or records labels out there that are actively challenging this issue and coming up with ways of reducing their tour’s impact on the environment. It didn’t take me long to find some positive and creative action being taken…

The Dave Matthews band collaborated with FilterForGood in order to reduce the amount of bottled water waste on their 2010 tour. They provided refilling water stations for their fans to help reduce the large quantities of bottled water waste that makes its way into landfills and our waterways. As part of their commitment to the environment they also provided recycling stations in the parking lots, encouraged fans to carpool to gigs, used sustainable biodiesel and offset the tours carbon emissions.

The Black Eyed Peas tour took a creative approach to promoting recycling waste on their worldwide tour. The waste that was accumulated at each venue was then recycled into official merchandise and on average venues reported an increase of 20-50% in recycling taking place on the night of a Black Eyed Pea’s show.

The Stowaways are a Canadian band who are setting out on a “sustainable music tour” this summer, as they will be travelling from gig to gig along the west coast by sailboat. This is a great idea to cut down their tour footprint and an even greater PR opportunity for the band.

My final and favourite example of a band going on a “green tour” has got to be the Ginger Ninjas. These guys are an American rock n roll band who will travel by bicycle across the US and Europe on their “Pleasant Revolution Tour”. They will also be playing on stages that are completely bicycle powered.

Could you imagine how many bicycles it would take to power U2’s stage? Answers on postcards please.

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Tags:Environment, music, recycle, Sustainability

Our brand spanking new Student Showcase blog will feature guest bloggers from around the world who have used the <Virtual Environment> software to complete their studies. If you would like your work to be considered for the Student Showcase blog drop me an email at john.goucher@iesve.com.

Several researches [IEA–ECBCS Annex 44 (2007) and (2010)] have demonstrated that, in order to overcome the limitation given by the existing technologies, the building as a whole system should be revisited as a more integrated organism, characterized by a “responsive” and “dynamic” behaviour. In particular Responsive Building Elements (RBE) represent a promising technology for achieving the requirements posed by the ZEB concept. Among other RBEs, Advanced Integrated Façades (AIFs) have been – and still are – widely investigated, especially because of the key role that the building envelope plays in controlling the energy and mass transfer between outdoor and indoor.

This MSc thesis work in Building Engineering consists in the energetic performance evaluation of an innovative AIF module, ACTRESS (ACTive, RESponsive and Solar), which has been conceived within a wider research activity on Responsive Building Elements, carried out by the TEBE Technology Energy Building Environment research group of the Polytechnic University of Turin, of which the author is part. The ACTRESS module is designed as a one story height prefabricated Multifunctional Façade Module, consisting of two sub modules (50%-50%), one opaque and one transparent. The opaque sub-module is constituted by an Opaque Ventilated Façade (OVF) equipped with axial fans for the hybrid (fan-assisted) ventilation of the cavity. The OVF integrates aSi PV panels on the outer surface, with a sandwich, made up of VIP and PCM layers, PV activated during winter.  The transparent sub-system is made of high performance glazing: triple glazeing lowE (internal) with cavity lowE operable venetian blinds (outer cavity), and Argon gas (inner cavity).

:: IES simulation of the  innovative ACTRESS façade module and results ::

ModelIT, SunCast, ApacheSim, MacroFlow and ApacheHVAC were used to model the different components of the AIF façade. The simulations showed important results. In the cooling season the façade is able to reduce the entering heat flux by more than 60% for the 50% of the occupation period, with an average improvement of 10% from NV to MV. The cumulated frequency analysis for the heating season shows that the façade has a high capability to preheat the cavity air, which can be used as Supply Air for the HVAC system, provideing the 20% of the heating plant load during winter. In the mid season the high values of preheating efficiency enable the use of cavity air as indoor environment supply air when (preheating efficiency) is between 1 and 2.

ACTRESS module improves the PV efficiency up to 10%, with a medium value of 5%, if compared to the electric efficiency of a BIPV on a vertical façade with no integration with any thermal system.

Comparing the ACTRESS module with a traditional façade the overall reduction of primary energy demand in an office building results in 52% less total energy demand (heating, air conditioning and electric), passing from 19,09 kWh/m³y to 9.09 kWh/m³y, with a significant reduction in heating loads EE_h, due to the use of PV energy to activate the PCM in the OVF (almost 53%). While it is also remarkable how the electric consumption can be almost totally covered, 95%, on an annual basis by the PV electric production, already accounting for PCM and fan consumption. Furthermore it was evaluated the possibility to exploit the OVF preheated air as supply air for the HVAC system during heating and mid season. Thus increasing the heating energy saving by 8% in respect to ACTRESS façade with Outdoor Air Curtain ventilation. In this way more than 55% reduction can be achieved, with 8,55 kWh/m³y total energy consumption.

Concluding the ACTRESS module shows a very good performance, concerning both the sub-components behaviour and the overall building energy demand. This investigation highlighted a poor performance of IES VE in simulating innovative components, as proper modeling needed tips and shortcuts not known to junior and medium designer, and assumption which can jeopardize the energy simulation reliability and accuracy. Data on its actual performance will be collected through a yearly experimental campaign, which is just started, which will allow a validation of the assumptions done.

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Tags:Building, Engineers, Environment, IES, software, students

This month, we have had loads of questions from you about UK Compliance and the changes with Part L 2010. So we will be focussing on how to use the Virtual Environment to create UK EPCs, if you are outside of the UK, sorry, this one is VERY specific!

As many of you will know by now Part L 2010 came into force in October last year, even though the related EPC section has been delayed until the 27th of March this year. This means that building regulations DER/ TER (both at design and completion stage) will be to Part L 2010, but the EPC calculations will still have to be carried out using Part L 2006 methodologies. You can read more about this here. This has posed an interesting problem for our software team, and as such we have had to come up with an innovative solution.

To make it as easy for you as possible, we have introduced a brand new backward compatibility function that enables you to easily switch, on the same computer, between the 2010 and 2006 IES VE Compliance modules.  This is essential for designers that need to access Part L 2006 software for ‘as built’ or EPC calculations, as it will negate the need to duplicate data input in different software versions.

In order to generate an EPC you will have to have version’s VE 6.1.1 AND VE 6.2.0.3 installed;

If you are a VE-DSM 2010 user click here for download instructions…

If you are a VE-Ware (VE-SBEM) user click here for download instructions…

If you are a SketchUp user click here for download instructions…

Do you have any other burning questions for us for next months Questions and AEC? If so get in touch on Twitter, Facebook, or drop us an email hello at iesve.com.

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Tags:aec, Building, compliance, downloads, Environment, EPCs, sketchup, software, VE-Ware

Earlier this year, I attended & was proud to present at The 10th REHVA World Congress – Clima 2010 in Antalya, Turkey. There were over 1,000 attendees from 56 countries at the HVAC congress. Attendees included two former ASHRAE presidents, one former CIBSE president - OBE, the current IBPSA president and the chairman of CIBSE Guide- A Steering Committee. There were 460 papers presented orally & 180 posters took place. Needless to say it was a huge success.

If you are unaware, REHVA is the Federation of European HVAC Associations and represents over 100,000 engineers from 28 European countries.

A feature of the biannual REHVA World Congress is the International student competition. Having graduated with my MSc. from Brunel University in 2009, I was asked to enter the competition. The European association I was representing was CIBSE, which I know is not specific to any one European country, but a collective nomination from the UK & Ireland nevertheless.

Apart from commending the success of the event, I wanted to blog about a fascinating project of the student competition, by Geert Filippini of Royal Haskoning in The Netherlands. Geert went on to win the competition, and deservedly so. Geert’s research work on a low energy micro-climate was very impressive. I’ve attached an image below of his built prototype which was tested in a climate chamber in the Eindhoven University of Technology.

The fresh air is being supplied directly into the microclimate of the occupant so the he/she is given a psychological feeling of being in control of his/her own environment. The radiant panel is a low energy feature (14% less energy), again because the local heating & cooling is taking place in the occupant’s working environment. A very clever idea!

I’ve analysed the concept using <VE> – MicroFlo for a typical day and the CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) analyses does also seem to certainly prove the concept.�
Please see the latest edition of the REHVA Journal & I hope to see you at the next annual conference In Tallinn in May 2011.

Liam

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Tags:ASHRAE, CIBSE, climate, Engineers, Environment, REHVA World Congress