EnergyPlus Variable that captures thermal loads?

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I am using this in a transient energy balance for modeling for Transactive Energy. It is not for any design decisions but rather for an estimate of the gross conductivity and thermal mass of a single family detached residential building.

I was thinking of using the variable "Zone Total Internal Total Heating Rate" to capture all the gains from people, cooking equipment, etc

I think the way we are thinking about this model is considering sensible energy fluxes that will result in immediate change in temperature of the interior air, rather than heating of the floor or building shell.

All of the heat fluxes either come from people, infiltration/exfiltration of air, solar, hvac, or temperature difference between the indoor and outdoor environment. Am I missing something? I think we have variables for hvac, the temp difference, and occupancy/equipment gains, but we need values that describe gains/losses from air exchange and solar radiation.

how do you handle the radiant contribution of solar gain and internal loads in your model?

it is all handled automatically. I don't ever write an IDF file because ResStock automatically generates OS models, and OS models automatically write the IDF file.

energyplus will capture the radiant components of load, assuming you have properly assigned radiant loss fractions to internal gain objects. A different question is what reporting variables you use to estimate internal gain contribution to radiant (delayed convective) loads. There isn't a straightforward way to do this. You cannot just report out the sensible internal gains and expect your "gross conductivity and thermal mass" estimate to be correct. You need to include the radiant, delayed release components in your calculation. I'm asking how you plan to include to those.