Energy cost Output variable

asked 2016-12-09 16:01:17 -0600

Archidoc
41 ●2

updated 2016-12-10 11:29:08 -0600

__AmirRoth__

4436 ●5 ●17 http://bleedinggreenna...

Hi All,

Once the objects below have been integrated in Energy Plus, the output table "EAp2-7. Energy Cost Summary" reports the runperiod Energy Cost summary for the fuel types used (in my case, electricity and gas). I used some schedules with Peak, Offpeak and Midpeak period including demand charges periods.

UtilityCost:Tariff, UtilityCost:Charge:Simple,

Is it possible to have an ouput variable reporting the total energy cost ? and also on a monthly basis? I couldn't find it in the .rdd and .mdd outputs.

Thanks all

Olivier.

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answered 2016-12-12 06:39:21 -0600

JasonGlazer

6835 ●25 ●12 http://www.gard.com/

The main output for the UtilityCost:Tariff object is in the tabular report (usually HTML) and are in the Tariff Report and the Economics Results Summary Report. The Tariff Report shows results on a monthly basis. These reports should be automatically generated when the UtilityCost:Tariff object is present. An example of this is shown in the 5ZoneEconomicsTariffAndLifeCycleCosts.idf example file. No output variables are currently used with the tariff calculations which are mostly performed after the simulation is complete. For real time pricing rates there has been a request to add an output variable.

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Hi Jason,

Thanks for the feedback. I indeed went through the monthly report after setting up the UtilityCost:Tariff object and this is a useful report to read demand and utility charges when playing just with few runs. I guess a cell mapping function can do it easily to report the cells value to a master spreadsheet.

When it comes to run parametric analysis with JePlus, the only way I found to report results was through the variable:output object, and unfortunately I don't know how to report the cost variable. Do you have any turnaround tips by any chance?

Archidoc ( 2016-12-12 12:27:28 -0600 )edit

I have peak, mid and off peak utility electricity rates on top of demand charge. The easy way would be to apply the mid-peak utility charges to the overall energy use as a post process in a spreadsheet, but this is a very quick shortcut.

The request to have real time cost looks very very helpful...Do you know if the next version of E+ will have this request embedded? Thanks for redirecting me to this.

Thanks,

Olivier.

Archidoc ( 2016-12-12 12:27:34 -0600 )edit

jEPlus can extract results from the tabular reports so that you can get these answers directly from the Tariff Report. The jEPlus manual talks about it here in Section 5.5 and unmethours answers it here. I do not believe the next version of EnergyPlus will include that request.

JasonGlazer ( 2016-12-12 12:50:55 -0600 )edit

Thanks again. This is exactly what I was looking for. I've finally been able to extract the energycost from the .rvx file which seemed to not be recognized by the software at first hand. Had to restart, and it worked just fine, after fixing a missing commas! For reference for future use, I am still attaching below the .rvx file. Olivier

Archidoc ( 2016-12-12 18:59:07 -0600 )edit

{ "rvis": [ { "fileName" : "DesiredOutput.rvi", "tableName" : "TestResults", "frequency" : "RunPeriod", "usedInCalc" : true } ],

"csvs": [
{
    "sourceCsv" : "eplustbl.csv",
    "fromReport" : "Annual Building Utility Performance Summary",
    "fromTable" : "EAp2-7. Energy Cost Summary",
    "fromColumn" : "Total Energy Cost [$]",
    "fromRow" : "Total",
    "tableName" : "Energy Cost",
    "columnHeaders" : "Total Annual Energy Cost [$]",
    "usedInCalc" : true
} 
]

}

Archidoc ( 2016-12-12 19:01:35 -0600 )edit

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