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1 | initial version |
You can't calculate embodied energy directly from EnergyPlus. It would be something I'd really like to see though.
DesignBuilder has an output for embodied carbon (link). While it doesn't calculate embodied energy the CSV file gives weights (or areas) of each material which you can use along with the ICE database (spreadsheet or other source on embodied energy data to calculate the embodied energy.
Alternatively you'll need to find the areas and thicknesses of all the materials in your building, then use the density to find the weight of each of them before calculating the embodied energy from that.
Depending on what you're actually modelling it may be simpler than that. If you're just considering the difference between a couple of insulation options then you need only consider the marginal embodied energy (this would be called a change-based embodied energy analysis). That is to say the difference between the options that you want to consider. For example if you're comparing two walls, one with no insulation and one with 50mm of insulated dry-lining, then you only need to consider the additional materials in the dry-lining boards (paper, plaster, insulation, possibly foil). All the rest of the building is the same in both scenarios so can be ignored.
2 | No.2 Revision |
You can't calculate embodied energy directly from EnergyPlus. It would be something I'd really like to see though.
DesignBuilder has an output for embodied carbon (link). While it doesn't calculate embodied energy the CSV file gives weights (or areas) of each material which you can use along with the ICE database (spreadsheet ) or other source on embodied energy data to calculate the embodied energy.
Alternatively you'll need to find the areas and thicknesses of all the materials in your building, then use the density to find the weight of each of them before calculating the embodied energy from that.
Depending on what you're actually modelling it may be simpler than that. If you're just considering the difference between a couple of insulation options then you need only consider the marginal embodied energy (this would be called a change-based embodied energy analysis). That is to say the difference between the options that you want to consider. For example if you're comparing two walls, one with no insulation and one with 50mm of insulated dry-lining, then you only need to consider the additional materials in the dry-lining boards (paper, plaster, insulation, possibly foil). All the rest of the building is the same in both scenarios so can be ignored.
3 | No.3 Revision |
You can't calculate embodied energy directly from EnergyPlus. It would be something I'd really like to see though.
DesignBuilder has an output for embodied carbon (link). While it doesn't calculate embodied energy the CSV file gives weights (or areas) of each material which you can use along with the ICE database (spreadsheet) or other source on embodied energy data to calculate the embodied energy.
Alternatively you'll need to find the areas and thicknesses of all the materials in your building, then use the density to find the weight of each of them before calculating the embodied energy from that.
Depending on what you're actually modelling it may be simpler than that. If you're just considering the difference between a couple of insulation options then you need only consider the marginal embodied energy (this would be called a change-based embodied energy analysis). That is to say the difference between the options that you want to consider. For example if you're comparing two walls, one with no insulation and one with 50mm of insulated dry-lining, then you only need to consider the additional materials in the dry-lining boards (paper, plaster, insulation, possibly foil). All the rest of the building is the same in both scenarios so can be ignored.
What EnergyPlus is good for is the other side of the life cycle energy analysis - the operational energy, which is almost always greater than the embodied energy. Again, in a marginal energy analysis you only need to consider the difference in energy use in your two cases.