General beginner help [closed]

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Hi all,

I am a complete beginner, both to EnergyPlus and to building energy modelling in general.

I have successfully run a simulation of the ASHRAE901 reference small office building with the relevant weather file.

I'm now trying to learn how to edit the .idf file manually (I am running EnergyPlus on a Mac, so don't have access to EP-Launch, and I also want to build up to being able to edit this file programmatically).

I want to change any building parameter and see the energy outputs change. At this point, it doesn't matter much to me what that parameter is - my criteria is just that it should be:

• a practical change that a designer might reasonably make
• make a noticeable difference to the energy outputs

I also need some help on the outputs too please. All I care about for the time being is the energy output per year per fuel type. (I'm trying to calculate carbon footprint, amongst other things.). The HTML output file comes with a lot of other noise.

Is there someone here that would be able to help me? I'm very happy to pay a reasonable rate to spend an hour or two for someone being patient with me!

Thanks in advance!

ps I have seen the Input/Output reference and all of the other extensive documentation on the EnergyPlus website, but I unfortunately don't have the time to dedicate to learning all of the essentials from the ground up and specialist knowledge of EnergyPlus and energy modelling in general, it's just for a short consultancy project!