Building Energy Optimization Research Ideas
Hello,
I am fairly new to the building energy simulation field and am in a Building Systems Masters Program. I am looking for a research topic for my program thesis and am very interested in centering it around energy model optimization. One idea I had was to compare the different solutions I get from various optimization programs (GenOpt vs. Honeybee/LadyBug vs. jEplus). I would analyze the optimal solutions that each program gives and try to determine why the programs may give those solutions.
Would this be a sensible research topic? What obstacles would you imagine I would face? Any other research topics/avenues I should research instead? I am fairly open to a topic, but again, would prefer it to center around an optimization problem.
Not sure this is the right forum for this kind of question. Can try bldg-sim@onebuilding.org listserv.
just to add, some of the algorithms (e.g. Genetic algorithms) in these software generate random solutions, so even same program will give you different results.
Ladybug + honeybee don't have an optimization engine, however there are several optimization plugins for Grasshopper that can be coupled with LB+HB. The short list is Octopus, GOAT and Galapagos. As mentioned by @Waseem you will probably end up to conclude that each of the optimization engines will give you different results based on the landscape of the results and the initial population.
I don't think such a comparison of optimization programs would be insightful. What solution you achieve and in what computing time is mainly a question of what optimization algorithm you use, what type of problem you ask it to solve, and how you parameterize and initialize the algorithm. Whether the algorithm is run from GenOpt, Honeybee/LadyBug or jEplus is secondary, assuming they all use parallel computing to evaluate the cost.
A comparison of optimization algorithm for single-objective building energy optimization can be found in http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1016/j.build...
Thank you for all of your comments! I will continue my search for a research topic.