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Cooling & Heating Component Breakdown with OpenStudio/EnergyPlus

asked 2015-04-15 15:49:25 -0600

dpud12's avatar

updated 2015-07-10 21:21:51 -0600

Is there any easy way to get a breakdown of the monthly cumulative heating and cooling heat transfer gains/losses (in terms of kWh) from the exterior wall, roof, and floor components per zone? The only way which I can envision doing so right now is to find the surfaces of interest, then use the "Surface Average Face Conduction Heat Transfer Energy" output variable and lump the surfaces by type. Ultimately, what I am interested in is a breakdown of heating and cooling heat transfer into the components shown below, reported on a monthly basis.

Window Heat Gain/Loss, Wall Heat Gain/Loss, Roof Heat, Floor Heat Gain/Loss, Internal Heat Gain/Loss, Infiltration Heat Gain/Loss, Ventilation Heat Gain/Loss

Thank you in advance for any insight that you can lend!

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answered 2015-04-16 05:41:01 -0600

updated 2015-04-16 05:45:34 -0600

When using EnergyPlus directly, the Zone Component Load Summary will probably have the information you are seeking. It can be generated by including the Output:Table:SummaryReports object and including ZoneComponentLoadSummary in the list of reports.

It is described as:

The Zone Component Loads Summary provides an estimate of the heating and cooling peak loads for each zone broken down into various components. This report may help determine which components of the load have the largest impact for the heating and cooling peak design conditions. When specified, the Zone Component Loads Summary report is created for each zone that is conditioned.

Since the heat balance algorithm that EnergyPlus uses does not support generating this kind of information directly, the report uses a side calculation to estimate the impact of each load component. The method used to create these estimates are described here. You may also want to see the example in the Output Details and Examples documention.

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Apologies for my poor word choice. This type of breakdown is exactly what I was looking for, except I need the same breakdown for cooling/heating heat transfer gains and losses in terms of energy rather than peak load. Do you know of any report that does the same side calculation for cooling/heating gains and losses for energy rather than peak load?

dpud12's avatar dpud12  ( 2015-04-16 07:40:12 -0600 )edit

The closest is the Sensible Heat Gain Summary.

JasonGlazer's avatar JasonGlazer  ( 2015-04-16 09:31:13 -0600 )edit

@JasonGlazer Thank you! I wonder why they didn't want to break it down by surface type, seems to me at least like that would be a very useful output

dpud12's avatar dpud12  ( 2015-04-16 09:54:33 -0600 )edit
4

answered 2015-04-15 16:48:20 -0600

The Zone Report measure will create a report of zone peak heating and cooling loads by load component, as well as additional zone HVAC information.

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Apologies for my poor word choice. This type of breakdown is exactly what I was looking for, except I need the same breakdown for heat transfer in terms of cumulative energy rather than peak load. I have revised the questions, is there any way to obtain this information easily? I have not found a measure on the BCL for this

dpud12's avatar dpud12  ( 2015-04-16 07:27:38 -0600 )edit

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Asked: 2015-04-15 15:49:25 -0600

Seen: 1,568 times

Last updated: Apr 16 '15