U.S. Department of Energy - Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

Building Technologies Office

Whole Building Energy Modeling — Reducing Modeling Time with the OpenStudio 0.8 User Interface and the Building Component Library (text version)

This webinar provided attendees with a preview of recent improvements to NREL and DOE's free open-platform energy modeling software, OpenStudio. The newly developed OpenStudio version 0.8 features integration with the Building Component Library, an online repository of reusable components for rapid and consistent energy modeling. The presenters also demonstrated a complete and easy-to-use modeling workflow using the OpenStudio SketchUp Plug-in and the stand alone OpenStudio application.

Below is the text version of "Whole Building Energy Modeling: Reducing Modeling Time with the OpenStudio 0.8 User Interface and the Building Component Library," originally presented on June 28, 2012. In addition to this text version of the audio, you can view the presentation slides and a recording of the webinar.

Michelle Resnick:
My name is Michelle Resnick and I'd like to welcome you to today's webinar titled "Whole-Building Energy Modeling: Reducing Modeling Time with OpenStudio 0.8 User Interface and the Building Component Library". This webinar is presented by the Building Technologies Program at the U.S. Department of Energy. We're excited to have with us today OpenStudio developers to help preview the new features in the next version.

But before we start I have some housekeeping items to cover. First, I want to mention that everyone today is on listen only mode. We will have a Q&A session at the end of the presentation that we will do using the live meeting window. You can participate by submitting your questions electronically throughout the webinar. To submit a question click on the Q&A link at the top bar of your screen, type the question in the box and click, "Ask". Please be sure to click ask and not the symbol of the raised hand. Our speakers will address as many questions as time allows after the presentation.

Today's speakers are David Goldwasser and Nicholas Long from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. David and Nick both focus on developing commercial building energy modeling tools and the component elements that support them. Today they will show us how OpenStudio 0.8 integrates with the building component library, an online repository of reusable components for rapid and consistent energy modeling and they will demonstrate a modeling workflow using the OpenStudio's SketchUp plug in as well as a standalone OpenStudio application. With that I'll turn the presentation over to David.

David Goldwasser:
Hello. So I'm going to start with a short slide deck. It'll probably take 10 or 15 minutes and then we'll jump into a presentation and as Michelle mentioned do questions at the end. So this slide show is some of the key questions we're going to answer today, "What is OpenStudio?" It's a building energy modeling application suite. It also includes the ability to rapidly create new analysis tools. Who are the users? They're building practitioners and designers, architects, engineers, students, researchers. Then, "What is the building component library?" It is a repository of reusable building components and measures and it's an integrated resource for OpenStudio. Then, "What does the OpenStudio workflow look like?" That will be the demonstration today.

So who is partnering with OpenStudio? Who are we collaborating with? We have a number of creators. SketchUp of course, which we use for the plug in is a partner and then a number of collaborators. Some national and some international organizations as well. This is just a word cloud showing the registered users. You can see a variety of EDUs and .govs and some architectural engineering firms as well. So we have a wide user base as far as the types of professionals.

So analysis tools for market transformation. This kind of addresses the different levels of expertise our users have. We have the ability to develop web interfaces for beginning users as well as very advanced analysis functionality for expert users. Then the demonstration today will focus on the middle where we have the SketchUp plug in and a visual application.

The beginners are this really broad market penetration but the ability to have the analysis functionality gives us a deeper energy impact on individual projects. The other thing this slide is showing is OpenStudio as a middleware. Now part of the demonstration today is OpenStudio as an interface which is up here but the core STK is this middleware that connects all these interfaces to the simulation engines which is of course EnergyPlus as well as Radiance. Then there are additional simulation engines that will be added to the bottom over time.

So these slides show the workflow and I'm going to go through them pretty quickly because the demonstration will show this as well but the basic idea is to rapidly create geometry using a footprint or manually drawn geometry and you can add administration. Then you start assigning attributes to space types on the bottom right. At that point we jump into another application. This just shows an alternative path where you import gbXML data and you can get your geometry from other sources as well. I won't go through them individually here but there are a number of options.

So one of the issues that we addressed is by soliciting feedback from users was that they wanted a single application they could access more with the features of OpenStudio. So we took the data from these interviews and using our OpenStudio FDK that allows us to rapidly develop new software in three months we made a new application called the OpenStudio application. After you leave the SketchUp plug in you jump into that application. I'll show a few screen shots of it here. But again, I'll go through these quickly because the demonstration will cover that. So the basic idea is a series of tabs on the left that walk you through kind of a prescribed workflow starting with assigning a site and then moving into mechanical systems and then running the simulation and viewing the results all within one application. This particular screen is showing you a schedule profile for particular objects in the model.

There is a drag and drop interface where on the right you have either your model or a library. So you can drag objects into drop zones or various elements, in this case something called a construction set. Then you can drop constructions on that construction set. This shows the mechanical systems. We have templated systems you can start with. You can add those in just by clicking one. But then you can select certain elements. In this case the DX cooling and you can change attributes over in the right in that "Edit" tab. This shows the high level simulation results that are visible after you run your simulation. Its annual data summarized by month and by end use for different types of fuel. In this case, electricity on the left and gas on the right.

I'm not going to demonstrate Radiance today but I did show that as a simulation engine and our model actually contains additional objects in support of Radiance and so some of those are air walls which are zone boundaries that don't have a physical appearance in the building. So exporting to Radiance those will get ignored but EnergyPlus will still use them as a zone boundary. Then we have interior partitions which shows up as the green surfaces on the bottom left , which represent physical walls in the building that don't have zone boundaries. So when we export to Radiance those are just as important as walls. When we export to EnergyPlus it becomes internal mass. So this is just showing this idea of the additional support we can add for different simulation engines.

So this slide is really just addressing reliability barriers. One of the tools to foster good process and that's what we showed with this prescribed workflow of tabs and the other is the input data. Garbage in/garbage out applies here as it does everywhere else and you need to make sure that the data going into the model is good. That's where the building component library comes in. So the building component library, there's a website, bcl.nrel.gov and it contains building components. These could be windows. These could be pieces of equipment and additionally something called an energy conservation measure. The demonstration will get into this more but on the right you can see some example of conservation measures which will be changing fan efficiency or the roof's U-value or the window well ratio. Those can be downloaded from this and then applies to an existing model.

Now I'm showing slides at the website here but in the demonstration we'll see integration with the application where you can hit BCL from our application and then use those in your model. Now this slide is just showing some procedure modeling where you take a number of ECMs or energy conservation measures and apply them to a seed model and it's changing a variety of attributes all at once. In this case, the aspect ratio and window-to-wall ratio and some underlying changes that you can't see on the slide and mechanical resistance.

Now I'm going to jump into the demonstration and then at the end of that we'll collect questions and we can answer questions that come up. So in a second here you should see my desktop and I'm going to start SketchUp. I'll give that a second to come up. So right now I have an empty SketchUp file and on the left are the standard SketchUp tools and on the top is our toolbar. I'll only use a few of those tools today but I just wanted you to be familiar with what they look like.

So the first thing I need to do is I'm going to choose a template to start with instead of starting with an empty file. So at the top left there's a button that says, "New OpenStudio Model from Template." When I click that I'm offered 16 different building types. I'm going to pick the large hotel. So this is going to load in a lot of the data I would need, model of a large hotel. This is scheduled construction and then different loads or activities for various space types in the building.

So now that I've loaded that in I'm going to start to draw some of my footprint that I'm going to use for the basis of the envelope. So I'm using the rectangle tool. I click a point to start it and then I'm going to type in 100 feet by 50 feet. You can precisely type this or you can manually draw what looks nice in the SketchUp. So now that I've done that I'm going to just slice that up into some spaces. So I'm going to divide it in half. I'm going to create a corridor but it will eventually become a corridor and then I'll split this front half in the front.

So now that I've done that I'm going to select all of those surfaces and I'm going to use a tool that creates spaces from the diagrams. So when I click that it offers me an input box that asks for floor-to-floor height and then how many floors. So I'm going to keep it at ten foot floors and then I'm going to go to two-story building. So it projects the geometry up and I now have spaces. Now I'm going to switch. We have a number of render moves here represented by these boxes. I'm going to switch for a minute to render by boundary condition and I'm going to draw a section cut. Boundary conditions determine how EnergyPlus treats those surfaces at each time step and you want the inside surfaces to have the thermal connection between spaces. So we have a tool called surface matching at the top and when I click that those surfaces in the middle will change to green and that represents thermal connections between those spaces as opposed to having them have a ground or an outside boundary condition.

So I'm going to jump back to our original render mode and I'm going to add some fenestration. You can manually draw the fenestration but for this example I'm going to use an energy conservation measure that I mentioned from the Building Component Library. So I'm going to go to plug-ins. We have an area called user scripts. If you've been using OpenStudio in the past something new you'll notice is we now have a nested structure here so you can kind of organize them. These were originally developed as user scripts and we put in some samples but users can expand the functionality of OpenStudio beyond what we've done except window-to-wall ratio was an example of that. So it brings up an input. Written into this script is an input for a window-to-wall ratio or a fractional value and then an offset and then you can choose to make that offset above the floor or below the ceiling.

So when I do that it will apply a ribbon window across my building to all exterior surfaces that meet that ratio. So another option here — you notice I did that same ratio all around the building but you may want to be more specific. So we have a surface search tool here that allows me to search for specific surfaces based on some attribute or series of attributes. In this case I'm going to pick sub-surfaces that face south which will have an orientation of 180 degrees. That will hide the rest of the model except for those surfaces. You may not see it on your screen but there's a small dot pattern to indicate that those surfaces are also selected.

So now that those are selected I'm going to go back to the user scripts and instead of picking the window-to-wall ratio I'm going to add overhangs by projection factor. I'll use the defaults here but you can change the projection factor and the offset. Then I'll unhide the rest of the model. So what you need here is I was able to make a selection based on whatever attributes I want and then just apply that energy conservation measure to the specific surfaces that I wanted to.

So for this demonstration that is really all I wanted to do with the envelope. So now I'm going to start assigning some attributes to the different spaces I made. So the first thing I'll do is switch to render by space types. So this is another render mode. Now you'll recall I used a large hotel template. So in that template we've defined all spaces to be guest rooms until they're told to be something else. So you can see here the description that this is a guest room for the hotel.

So I'm going to rotate this around a bit here so I can select these two spaces in the middle and I want to change those to be corridors. So we have a tool up here that's kind of in the same area where I've been taking other tools and it is attributes for selected spaces. So this can be one space or a collection of spaces. I'm going to go and I'm going to choose the large hotel corridor. Because this render mode is based on space types when this is done the colors of the model will change to represent that new space type. Again, that space type has all of the activities and the lighting loads and schedules and equipment and people that go into that space type.

So I'm going to make this bottom right space a lobby. For the top right I'm going to use something new we have here. I'd like to make that a small market like a grocery store. So I don't have that in my hotel template so I'm going to use something new called the On Demand Space Type Generator that's part of the Building Component Library. Now I haven't mentioned this yet but OpenStudio 0.8 will come out early next week. This particular feature won't be unlocked for public users probably for a week or two after that.

So we have to get that set up but that will be online soon. This is similar to some of the other scripts here where it provides me with a series of inputs. In this case a standard. So I'm going to pick ASHRAE 90.1. I have a choice of climate zones one through three or four through eight. The reason those are picked is because the infiltration rates change in the northern climates. Then I'm going to pick a primary space type, in essence my building type. So I'm going to go down to supermarket.

Now what you're seeing here is ruby console in SketchUp we just opened to provide you feedback. I had previously run this script with this particular space type so they were already made. So if you got these online it would say that it didn't find it locally and it would download it and it would go a little slower than this but the idea is that you can generate on the fly on the Building Component Library space types based on whatever input you provide. Over time we'll increase the number of inputs so you can make more complex space types.

So I can close that dialogue now. If I select the space here and go back to the space attributes, you'll notice at the top will be a series of new space types. So I'm going to pick the supermarket sales and produce and I'm going to assign that to this top space here. So we're almost done with the SketchUp loading at this point but we have a few more steps. I'm going to switch to this next render mode which is render by thermal zone.

So render by thermal zone instead of looking at space types looks at EnergyPlus thermal zones. This is what is used for the mechanical systems. So often you'll select multiple spaces within one thermal zone. So that's what I'm going to do here. I'm going to take the two guest rooms at the bottom and I'm going to go back to the step attributes, but I'm going to go further down now to thermal zone. We don't have any thermal zones in the model but I'm going to make a new one and apply it to those two spaces. So it'll pick a color to use for those space types. I'm going to do the same thing up here.

Now both of those thermal zones have spaces that have the same space type but now I'm going to pick a corridor and a lobby and I can still combine those into the same thermal zone even though they have different activities going on. When EnergyPlus runs we'll or in passing this all off to EnergyPlus we'll add those loads together so that you don't have to keep a separate spreadsheet to manage your loads. I'm going to cancel out of that. On the top I'm going to leave them separate so I'm going to make the corridor its own space type and then I'll have the grocery store as its own space type. Now these colors might look the same here but you can actually go in here and adjust those so two of them that look alike are actually different. So both are user configurable.

So the last stuff here I'm going to do is I'm going to set thermostats here as well. So I'm going to do the same space attributes that I've been using and go further down. I'm going to turn on something called Ideal Air Loads. If you weren't going to design or model a mechanical system but you still wanted to get some feedback on your simulation on how much energy it takes to meet these set points Ideal Air Loads would be how you approach that. Then as your design advances you could add the mechanical system which is what we're going to do in the demonstration. So I'm just going to pick one thermostat and apply it throughout the building but you can have different thermostats for different spaces or rather different thermal zones.

So now I'm going to save this here and I'm just going to back up one directory here. So at this point I'm going to click a button here called Launch OpenStudio. You can manually launch OpenStudio form your start menu but if you launch it from here it will load it with your currently opened model. So that just kind of streamlines the workflow for you. When that opens it's going to show us the first tab at the top which will leave the site path. I'm going to add in the weather files that we need and then I'm going to add mechanical systems and just run a quick simulation. So model is open and it has our model we can be by the name at the top. I'm just going to save it as another name just to have a keeping of a variety of models so I can always step back, see what I had earlier.

So there are two input boxes here. One of them is asking for an EPW file and these are also on BCL but in this case I'm going to manually browse to my EnergyPlus install to the weather files and I'm just going to pick golden. Then I'll click open. That path will load in there. Next I'm going to add DDY files or Design Day files. These are used for sizing the system among other things as well. So again, I'm going to go back to the C Drive to EnergyPlus to weather data. In this case the file is the DDY file instead of the EPW file.

Now after I run the simulation I'm going to talk about a lot of the tabs here. Tabs are coming up next, our resource tabs, but I'm going to jump down here to the tab that allows us to add our mechanical system in. It's called the "HVAC Systems" tab. When I click that tab there is a green plus near the top left. That brings up the dialogue with the templates that I can choose from. I'm going to scroll down here to a packaged rooftop with reheat. So it has a plant for heating and cooling and a variable, and it has hot water reheat. That's what the icons are indicating.

So I click "Add to Model" and that will show up on your screen in a minute. So pretty much all I have to do here is I'm going to click zone mix or zone splitter which is the arrows at the bottom and I'm presented with a list of thermal zones. So I'm going to select all of the thermal zones except thermal zone five. So I'm going to do one, two, three and four. You'll see the diagram change and expand to show that. Really I'm ready to run. If I wanted to see, for example, what my fan efficiency was I could click one of these objects and the "Edit" tab opens and that will allow me to just inspect that data or to go in and change it. But in this case I want to leave it how it is.

I'm going to jump down now a number of tabs to the "Run Simulation" tab. I'm going to save my model and then I'm going to click "Run". Now this is running an EnergyPlus simulation. Our model format is saved in OpenStudio model and so EnergyPlus won't run that. So what's happening in the background is we are running a translator to convert the file form an OpenStudio model to an EnergyPlus Info Data File. At that point we have something called Run Manager which is both a standalone application but something we can hit programmatically and Run Manager passes it off to EnergyPlus. EnergyPlus is running a simulation and we're seeing that standard output from EnergyPlus here.

When EnergyPlus is done we take the resulting output file and we feed that back into OpenStudio and it'll be displayed in the next tab we get to once the simulation is done. But while I'm waiting for that to run we can see some of those steps described here where we're running expand objects and here we're running an analysis or rather EnergyPlus is running an analysis on the constructions that exists in the model. If I scroll down we'll start to see some of the sizing and the warm up periods being done. Then further down we'll start to see monthly calculations going on. So here through June and the months themselves should be pretty quick.

So once that's done we'll show the results tab. I skipped over a lot of tabs here and so I'm going to go back and show you how these resource — there's a lot of inherited objects that happen in OpenStudio. So modeling and EnergyPlus, for example, constructions are always designed to an individual surface. We allow you to drill down and do that but you can also assign constructions for an entire space or for the entire building as a high level and it allows you to make global changes easily but still allows you to drill down for special cases and control every surface in your building. Then that same logic applies for schedule and loans.

All right, we're just about done here. While I'm waiting for that I can actually start to work here, too. So this shows the currently running job. This model to IDF was the conversion that went from the OpenStudio model to the EnergyPlus Info Data file. Then all of the same files that you have in EnergyPlus are exposed here. So if you want to look at what meters or variables you can request or look at the energy plus — you can access those here.

Going back to the "Output" tab our simulation is now complete. It took about a minute and 45 seconds. Then you can just jump down one tab here and we can see the electric consumption at the left and the natural gas consumption at the right. Again, this is similar to the ABUSP table but we're breaking it down monthly. ABUSP is Annual Building Utility Summary Performance. But here we also have end uses on the right. So the only time we're using gas in this particular model is for heating but if we had a kitchen there would be other end uses for natural gas. You'll notice there is no heating here so all the heating is gas but we could have put in some electric heating in some specific areas. Then this is presented in the table view as well as down below. So I'm just going to save this model again so we can save the output data in case we want it later.

I'm going to jump to a tab called the "Facilities" tab. So this tab provides you a preview of your model where you can look at it by space type or by thermal zone or rather by story or by thermal zone. That should come up there in a minute. So in this case I'm looking by stories and I can select a specific space here and I can see what objects go on that space. So this space is on the first story. It's in thermal zone number one and it has a space type that is our guest room. Then if I scroll down further I can see outdoor air. I can see infiltration and then some of the internal load objects like the people and the lights and equipment. I'll talk about those more when we get into space types. But what I wanted to show here was ways in which the model can be manipulated, how things are inherited.

So you'll notice this space type is green. This one is black and it has an X next to it. So this one is assigned and it is a large corridor. I'm going to leave that alone but I'm going to go up to this space type, disinherit it for space three and I'm going to go to our library. On the left we have the "My Model" tab, we have the "Library" and we have "Edit". The "Library" and "My Model" allow you to grab objects to take into your drop zones. I'm actually going to go to "My Model" and I'm going to go to space types.

So these ones that have little BCL icon those are the ones that the on demand space type generator created and we tag those as being from BCL. We already have the sales in there but I'm going to drop a deli in here in place of the inherited space type. So when I do that you'll notice the design specifications changed and now we have a gas objects down at the bottom because the deli has I assume some ovens. If I go up and delete that — I'm going to wait a minute for the screen to refresh for you — when I delete that then I'm back to a guest room. Then the gas load is gone. So the idea with the space types is that you can change the definition of the space types much like you can change the definition of a construction and in any way that's used it updates your model. But if you want to you can add loads to a space on top of what it gets from in space type.

So one last thing I want to show before I leave this tab. I'm going to jump to sorted by thermal zones instead and much like I can drop space types on I can go drop thermals on zone. So space free here. I scroll up to the top is in thermal zone one. I'm going to delete that. You'll notice space three is no longer in thermal zone one and this unassigned thermal zone area now look like its red.

So I can expand that. That's a warning that it's red because if I were to run a simulation now EnergyPlus doesn't know about space three or any of the loads that go in it. So it's a good warning to see that something in the model isn't complete but it's easy to fix. I just go to "My Model" instead of going to space types I go to thermal zones and these are the five thermal zones I have and I'm going to drop this back into thermal zone one where it was to start with.

So I'm going to jump up a few tabs now and go to space types. Space types are a resource but they contain a number of other resources. So above space types we have internal loads. We have constructions and we have schedules. All of those get added together into space types although they can also be added directly to a building. So I'm going to select one of our space types here. I'm going to actually purge out the ones we're not using so this list will look a little smaller. Again, when I started with that large hotel template it had more space types than I used and it had them across different vintages. When you get into constructions you're actually have the constructions for all these different U.S. climate zones.

So in a second on your screen — your screen's lag time. Mine just a little bit. I'm just going to go to the guestroom. So here you can see how you define the major elements of the space types. I have people, I have lights and I have electrical equipment. The light has a definition and it also has a schedule. So there's a number of ways you can do this. In our templates the load is typically defined as a — in the case of lighting the lighting power density or equipment power density. So watts per square foot or watts per area or rather per person. Then there's a schedule that's associated with that that defines the operational pattern for those.

Later in design and I'll show this when I jump to the loads you might know the actual light fixtures you're going to use so you might have a 50 watt fixture and you're going to have 20 of them. So in that case you would set your multiplier here to 20 and you would change your load to show 50 watts as opposed to a watts per square foot type value. You don't have to redo your entire model and you just have to update a few of these objects or you can clone an object and leave your original one untouched.

Again, space types can set the schedule so you don't have to assign schedules to each load. You have a schedule set and I'll talk about the schedule sets here in just a few minutes to see how those assign schedules to specific types of activity. But first I just want to quickly show loads. So when I jump to loads there's categories for the different types of loads that we have here. I won't go through them all but there are a number of them. So when I pick one this one happens to be — well let's not go to mechanical. Well we can.

So mechanical has 6.4 watts per square meter. If I were to pick something like retail which I think is around here retail is going to have a significantly higher value. So maybe retail is going to use 80 watt fixtures, right? So this is where I would set this to 80 and then in the multiplier back in the actual instance of this load being used. I would set it to however many fixtures you have. But in this case I'll put it back similar to what it was before. So anyway, that's all I want to show for loads.

Remember again, space types, loads and kind of schedules go hand in hand. So I'm going to jump to the "Schedules" tab. Some of our tabs have stuffed tabs that you drill further down in. In this case the top tab is kind of high level schedule data. I'm going to skip over that and I'm going to jump right to the "Schedule Sub-sets" tab. So here I'm going to pick the retail space as an example.

This is the retail space for a large hotel. You have an occupancy schedule. You have a lighting schedule. Activity has to do with the heat people give off. You can have electric equipment and if you wanted to add gas equipment I could find the schedule. Here's the laundry room gas schedule. So maybe they want to have laundry in the retail space which would be odd, but anyway. You just drop it on there and now any time I add a gas object to the retail space type it will pick up the schedule unless I decide I want to override it with a unique schedule in one case. But in this case I don't have any gas equipment so I'm just going to delete that out.

Now I want to show how you can drill down further and manipulate the actual schedules. So on the left we now have a list of schedules and I'm going to find one here that would be a good one to show. So what I'm going to show here is this large hotel building lighting. This is the schedule and it's called a schedule rule set and we have a number of rules underneath it and the rules are identified by these priorities on the left that have different colors. So I'm going to pick priority three. I'm going to close this over here.

Now when I select this priority what I'm seeing is a profile over a 24 hour day for the lighting. This is a fractional schedule. This particular one goes up to one. If you had a thermostat it would have temperatures instead of a fractional value. The rules have different colors. S o priority three is green and if you look at the top it runs Monday through Friday for the entire year. If you look way over to the right is an annual calendar and scroll down. It lets you know for a specific date — if you want to know what calendar applies on or what profile applies on March 9th I can see that it's green. So it's going to be priority three because that's as Monday.

But if I go up to the other priorities you'll notice the profile will change a bit based on the pattern. I'm going to go up to priority one. Let's say that I want priority one to apply on Monday too because this — let's say it's an office and they're not going to be open on Monday. So we can apply that rule now and if you look over to the right you will see that March 9th that not only uses profile one instead of profile three. So the stacking order of these priorities indicates which one will apply if there's an overlapping value.

I haven't gone into it here but if you're using a building type like a school and it doesn't function the same throughout the year rules can also apply just to a specific date range. So that's shows how they get applied. The one thing I don't want to forget here is to show how you would change these. You can basically click on this and just start dragging it up and down and you can double click it if you want to split it in half. So maybe I want to slide all of this over. I can just move these over here and raise it up higher. If I double click on a vertical it deletes that and keeps your schedule a little simpler. So you can change these all your want and you can actually drill down into a higher fidelity if you want to do it in 15 minute or even 1 minute time steps but I'm not going to do that here.

So there's one other BCL component I want to show that I haven't done yet and that's adding constructions. So in the SketchUp plug in we added big types that were made but in OpenStudio the OpenStudio application that we have a new window called Online BCL. So again, you saw screenshots of the BCL Website and you can go there and you can search but you don't even have to leave the application now. In this particular release we implemented constructions but other types of components will be coming down the road.

So I'm going to look for walls and I'm going to look for exterior walls. It's going to run a search now. I probably did this a little quick but I think there was something like 2,000 objects to start with and now that I'm looking just for exterior walls I can adjust the slider. You now have 476 items and we can page through those results. But I know that I want to pick a construction for climate zone 5B and I want it to be a steel-framed wall. So I'm going pick type Bs in here and it will search for that for me. That should narrow it down to one or two pages of results.

So now I have six items. So while most of my buildings using ASHRAE 90.1 I've already downloaded that one. This check mark indicates things that are already in my database and when I select an item here I can see attributes for that, for example, the effect of RO value. So I'm just going to say that the steel wall is older. I'm going to pick 2007, 90.1 2007 and I'm going to click download. Now I'm just picking one object. You can actually pick multiple objects from here and download them at once.

Also something I forgot to mention with both BCL features the first time you use it it's going to ask you for a key. So when you register on the BCL Website you can get an API key and then it'll let you input it into OpenStudio and in the SketchUp plug in. So from that point on it'll run behind the scene even when you upgrade to newer versions of OpenStudio. But we do have instructions online to step through that.

Anyway, that downloaded a while back. I forgot to put this little green progress bar. So now I'm going to close this window and I'm going to jump to the "Constructions" tab. Now much like schedules, constructions has a series of sub-tabs. So the first thing I'm going to show here and the main thing I'm going to show here are construction sets. Looks very much like schedule sets but in this case we have exterior walls, exterior floors, exterior roof at the top and then we move into interior surfaces or ground contact surfaces. So when we were in the SketchUp plug in doing boundary conditions not only was that setting up thermal conditions that EnergyPlus would use or time step analysis but it also informed what constructions you wanted assigned based on these construction sets.

I'm going to go to my library now under construction because I scroll at the bottom. We have BCL ones kind of set up, ready on their own. The one I just got here was this one on top, the 90.1 2007. So I could drop that on in place of the exterior wall they used but I want to demonstrate some of the advanced features of construction sets.

So at the bottom left we have a little plus that allows you to add a new object and it adds a new construction set. I'm just going to take this exterior wall and drop it on here. I'm not going to assign interior walls or floors or anything else. I'm just going to make it what I would call a partial construction set. Then I'm going to jump back to the "Facility" tab here. Actually I think this is just about the last thing and then we'll jump into questions here in a minute.

So if I go back and look by story here which is the other — where are my stories? Here we go. So if I drill down into one of these spaces I didn't show this before but you can actually drill down and see individual surfaces. So this is an exterior surface from space three on the first floor. Now let's say on the first floor I don't want to use a mass wall. So are my default construction if you look here is a 2009 exterior mass wall. So I can go to my model and I made a new construction set and its called default construction set one.

When I drag that over here — actually I'm sorry. Let that go there for a minute. I want to go back up to my stored object. I want to drag the construction set over here. So if I go back to my surface now you'll see that it's not getting a steel-framed wall instead of the mass wall. That's applying to any exterior wall on any of the stories on story one.

So this allows you to change hundreds of objects potentially with a single thing. If you want to later go back and change that construction set you just go back to your resources and change that or in my case decide, "I just want to use the mass wall everywhere." So I can delete this and this construction is now changed. So this is the idea, this inheritance and this drop zone ability to quickly change your models is one of the key features of OpenStudio.

I'm not going to show anything with this particular tab here but we do have a tab that allows you to inject scripts here and this is similar in some way to the user scripts in the SketchUp plug in but this gets injected during the process where you run your simulation and convert to an IDF and then run it. So one of these scripts will, for example, set window-to-wall ratio. So if I were to drag that over it would ask for the same input or the window-to-wall ratio in the fraction. Additionally, it would ask for an orientation. So we don't have tools here to select actual pieces of geometry. So instead we built into the script the ability to pick based on orientation. Anyway, the point of this is that you can extend OpenStudio to automate tasks or even using IDF scripts to add elements that we have not built direct support for from EnergyPlus as EnergyPlus has new things coming out.

So anyway, just before we open for questions I wanted to mention a few quick things. OpenStudio 0.8 is due out early next week, maybe Monday or Tuesday. I don't have an exact date. It just depends on how long it takes to get up on the Website but no later than next week. OpenStudio 0.8 will support EnergyPlus 7 but we do iteration releases roughly every two weeks and for OpenStudio 0.8.1 will support EnergyPlus 7.1 as well as Sold Water Systems. Then the focus moving forward to OpenStudio 0.9 and we're on a three month release cycle so this will be fall is working on additional systems performance and then multi-building interface.

So I'm going to jump just to a slide here that has some information and then we can look at the questions and then we can address some of those. Let me share the slideshow again. I'm sorry. Well yeah, the conclusions I talked about a lot of this and some of this stuff we went over in the beginning but simplifying energy modeling, that's one of the key things. It helps users as well as developers. It gives you access to good data and it's being adopted across the spectrum by different types of users and developers.

Michelle Resnick:
So it looks like we've got a bunch of questions here. I think maybe what I can do is read them off of here and then so everyone can hear the question and then David and Nick can answer as they're able. The first question is — somebody asked if we could please let them know all the plug-ins they have in SketchUp. I think you covered several items.

David Goldwasser:
Yeah, so all the plug-ins. OpenStudio itself is a plug in to SketchUp and there's a number of features in it. That's documented on the Website, OpenStudio.NREL.gov. There are others and in fact there are many third party plug-ins to SketchUp that do energy modeling or do other types of things. So we're just one of those plug-ins but then that ties into our standalone OpenStudio applications.

Michelle Resnick:
Next question is about master templates. They'd like to know if they can create their own master templates and/or if they can modify the master templates that do exist. They want to know if they can send components somewhere to request that they be added to BCL or if there's a depot where they can put those components. So a few questions.

David Goldwasser:
I'll take the first part and then Nick I'll hand off to you for the BCL. So as far as the master templates those are actually just OSM files that get installed when you install OpenStudio and so when you go — it opens them like a read-only mode. So you can modify those or make your own OSM files and then those will become your templates. So yes, up to that part and I'll let Nick —

Nicholas Long:
Regarding the Building Component Library right now the way that components get uploaded is through a super admin. So someone at NREL is adding the content. So if you do have components that you would like to have added I see no issue if you sending to either of the e-mail addresses that you see at the bottom of the slide. The goal in the next 6 to 12 months after that is to provide user generated content so that we open it up where anyone can add content or components into the repository.

Michelle Resnick:
Our next question is, "Will the user of the option to use California specific climate zones instead of national climate zones?"

David Goldwasser:
Those are already in there actually. I believe if you search on cloud point for climate zones you'll see those in there. I don't think it's fully populated all the climate zones in California but we have populated some of them.

Michelle Resnick:
The next question is, "Can you use OpenStudio to analyze small residential units," and they're specifically asking about single story and multi-story buildings.

David Goldwasser:
So if you looked at the 16 building types that we have one of them is multi-family or mid-rise apartment I believe. So the loads for that would be very similar for what you do for a single family home. I think some of our other building types like quick service restaurant use wood frame construction so you can mix and match from the different building types we have to get constructions from one and loads from another and you could work pretty well for residential. But again, if you know the loads you want you can make your own template that will be more specific for what you're looking for and eventually BCL —

Nicholas Long:
[Whispers] Design Build Bluff.

David Goldwasser:
Yeah, so one user we're working with is Design Build Bluff which is a group out of Utah, University of Utah and CU and they're working on low energy building, a lot of passive design in Bluff, Utah.

Michelle Resnick:
Then our next question is, "Can you show or cover some scripting that you use a lot and how they can be done by users?" You did some of that.

Nicholas Long:
This one I would go to the website and actually just look at the source code, check out all the source code or even look at the installed libraries that come with OpenStudio and there's a directory that has examples of scripts that we do use. The other thing is that we are going to be publishing an interactive design or PDF if you will on how to use advanced analysis capabilities with OpenStudio. This is basically setting up energy conservation measures, setting up the type of algorithm you want to use be that a parametric sweep or simple optimization and then hit and go. It is for advanced users only, so not for the faint of heart but it does walk you through the scripts that are available and how to use them at a very detailed level.

David Goldwasser:
One thing I'll add for the SketchUp plug-in and then even for the scripts that you saw in the OpenStudio app just like templates there's this folder that those get stored in. So if you make your own or if you want to adapt one that's there you can just edit those in place so you don't have to build your own software. The scripts are ruby scripts and they're just text editable.

Michelle Resnick:
All right. Our next question is, "Can AutoCAD be used as an input?"

David Goldwasser:
Yes. So there are anything you can get into SketchUp, for example, can be used as the starting point but additionally through that we can also import of course IDF files as well as gbXML. So yes. Now depending what program you work from it will change how much data is behind that. If it's just geometry or if it's carrying underlying instructions or activities.

Michelle Resnick:
The next question is people want to know if they can use it if they're outside of the country.

Nicholas Long:
Yes. To be more specific you can download the application off the website. There is swapping of units now so you can have SI units or empirical units, whichever you prefer.

Michelle Resnick:
The next question is, "Can you rename the spaces and thermal zones?"

David Goldwasser:
Yes, you can. So there is an inspector I did not show in the SketchUp plug in. They will eventually be phased out for something that looks more like the OpenStudio app but so you can use that inspector. It looks like a magnifying glass with a box in it or in the OpenStudio application you can rename those spaces or thermal zones.

Michelle Resnick:
The next question is, "Are there any tools that can assist in user assemblies especially accounting for 2D and 3D effects?"

David Goldwasser:
Do you want to take that?

Nicholas Long:
You would have to use another — I assume you're talking about 2D effect, 3D effect of heat transfer. To clarify they help a little bit but speaking about 2D and 3D effect with heat transfer you would need to use another tool probably something like Therm or Window 5 to actually generate and input for EnergyPlus and then import it through that method. That's probably the best path to do it and I assume that's what you're referring to.

Michelle Resnick:
The next question is, "When do you plan to populate the BCL with mechanical systems?"

Nicholas Long:
So there's a project with a local utility that we are starting to get some data about their systems that they use for their savings. The goal would be to take those systems, chillers, fans, unitary systems, et cetera and load them into the Building Component Library for everyone's use so that they would have both generic cost associated with them and the generic systems with them.

Michelle Resnick:
The next question is, "Can this be easily adapted to facilities where the supply or quantities are not determined by cooling loads? Such laboratories were PM Hood exhaust sometimes determines supply airflow rates and clean rooms where air exchange rates determine supply airflow rates."

Nicholas Long:
So yeah, you could do this. You're getting into an energy modeling challenge at this point. We don't have exhaust fans currently in the version. It will be out in the next version in September to actually supply the exhaust fans which would be basically how a fume hood would work. I think the best answer to this question is you should look at some of the advanced analysis that we've done for kitchens and for some laboratories using energy modeling and you can get some of those resources and the technical support documents that we've done for the advanced energy design guide or for some of the Commercial Building Energy Alliance work. I think we could post that material along with the link to the Webinar when we're there.

Michelle Resnick:
The next question is for brand new users are looking for learning resources of a basic level and they want to know if you have any particular recommendations.

David Goldwasser:
Yes. So our main website is OpenStudio.nrel.gov. It's on the bottom of this slide. There's a link there to a lot of our videos on YouTube so you can also go to You Tube and just search OpenStudio. There is a workflow that goes through something very similar to what was shown in the demonstration today. But of course since I talk fast you can pause. We have an interactive PDF that shows the interface that's supposed to SketchUp on OpenStudio and it has labeled arrows telling you what happens where. So downloading that PDF that's on OpenStudio.nrel.gov is good.

Michelle Resnick:
The next question is, "Have you incorporated IP units to the results viewer and OpenStudio?"

Nicholas Long:
Go ahead.

David Goldwasser:
Well we have not incorporated that with the results viewer. We just had a discussion actually about converting the ABUSP table though that comes out of EnergyPlus to IP and that'll be very easy. Eventually I believe results will be offered in both but it may not be directly through results viewer.

Michelle Resnick:
The next question is, "Is it correct to assume that the process is similar with existing building creation," and specifically they want to know if they can import an existing SketchUp model and map the building face on space type and loads and run an analysis.

David Goldwasser:
So if you import an existing SketchUp model the thing to know if there's no data necessarily behind those objects. So you can use it as a guide and you can create spaces from that geometry and then assign space types but it's not going to automatically know what your model is to start with but it definitely is a great starting point for your model.

Michelle Resnick:
The next question, "Is there a Mac version?"

David Goldwasser:
So yes, everything is Mac, Windows and Linux, the exception being there's no SketchUp version of Linux. So that's just Mac Windows.

Michelle Resnick:
The next question is, "How is it different from SimErgy?" I hope I'm saying that right.

Nicholas Long:
Yes. So SimErgy is a tool that's being developed for energy modeling and EnergyPlus in general. The major difference between the two is OpenStudio is an open sourced product. We are encouraging code computers to add information, anything into our repository. We are more focused more heavily on the middle layer of this where we want to provide the modeling platform. The front ends are great. We like the front ends but really it's the middle layer that we focus on and we just expose the front ends when we can.

Michelle Resnick:
The next question is about — they're asking if we can please share the outside air calculations within the library and some more about different HVAC systems that can be modeled using OpenStudio.

Nicholas Long:
So the outside air counts within the library they are basically parameters that are passed into EnergyPlus directly. So if you want to understand how outside air is calculated and how systems are sized based on those you could look at the EnergyPlus engineering reference manuals or the input/output reference. There's a couple thousand pages on how that all works. The latter part of the question was more information regarding HVAC systems. Again, the modeling of the HVAC systems is basically just an abstraction of what's in EnergyPlus. If you need more detail on how EnergyPlus hands it reference the reference manuals that EnergyPlus is shipped with. We do though provide a layer to make it easier to add the systems into the energy modeling framework but we do still use the exact same methods that EnergyPlus is calling.

Michelle Resnick:
The next question is, "How do you use Run Manager to test different design options of, for example, testing different exterior wall constructions?

David Goldwasser:
So there is a Run Manager application I didn't show today that allows you to batch run simulations. Once you've done that you can currently in results your load results from multiple simulations or you could put them into an Excel spreadsheet to compare them against each other. But that's one of the focuses for the 0.9 was this multi-building interface which would allow you to compare results across models.

Michelle Resnick:
The next question is, "Is there a location library for additional scripts?"

Nicholas Long:
So the BCL is going to have building measures which are ruby scripts themselves but there may be some ruby scripts for reporting or doing something else the users can share on our forum and then as we get really good examples we add them to our installer.

Michelle Resnick:
The next question is, "Do you have space, façade and HVAC templates for creating 90.1 baselines?"

Nicholas Long:
Yeah, so loaded in our existing templates and also on the space type on demand are four vintages. So there's 90.1 is one of them. There's 189.1. The other two are CBECS states, historical data. So there's pre-1980 and post-1980 and that's for constructions as well as for loads.

Michelle Resnick:
The next question is, "What are the other methods available for creating the 3D model? You showed the manual geometry creation but one of your slides showed many other options."

David Goldwasser:
There's a number of other methods within SketchUp. One of them is called Match Photo which allows you to just load in your own photographs or in one example I think I loaded a floor plan and just used that as a guide. It has a program called Building Maker. It's a Web based tool but it can export SketchUp files. Then again, SketchUp offers so many formats you can really model any 3D modeling program you want as a starting point.

Michelle Resnick:
The next question, "It seems like OpenStudio is great for early quick analysis of building, for example, space, times, common energetically named as do zones, et cetera. Can you speak to how the process changes when you have a detailed design where many detailed parameters are already known?"

David Goldwasser:
I'm sorry. I'm just going to review one more time. So yeah, if you know a lot of parameters like, for example, the specific construction menus you can just build that construction or if you know every employee is going to have a Dell Latitude computer and you know their operational schedules you just put in those specific values instead of using like the watts per square foot. I'm not quite sure if I'm getting at the right answer there. But again, even though its user early at the time the templates are built for that you can turn any dollar you want to just about.

Nicholas Long:
Just to add to that a little bit. I think that's the power of the templates is that they are applied generically to the whole building and then if you ever need to override a specific value and a specific floor or specific space or a specific zone or a specific wall you can override it as you get more and more information about the building.

Michelle Resnick:
The next question is, "Are climate outside of the U.S., for example, and Canada supported?"

Nicholas Long:
So climate zones, yes, are supported because if you're using ASHRAE typical climate zones they're defined across the world. The weather files though for outside the U.S. you would have to go to the EnergyPlus' Webpage to download those weather files. The Building Component Library does not have international weather files in it at the moment though.

Michelle Resnick:
The next question is, "Can the SketchUp plug in be used to modify geometry after opening the model in OpenStudio? If so are there are any of your inputs lost in translation through OpenStudio to SketchUp and back to OpenStudio?"

David Goldwasser:
That's a very good question and I'm glad you brought it up since I didn't demonstrate it but yes. So there's absolutely no loss going back and forth between the SketchUp plug in and the OpenStudio application. We're not translating across. We're actually opening the exact same OpenStudio model. So you can work in it in the app and change in the plug in and go back and forth as much as you would like.

Michelle Resnick:
Great. While answering questions you talked about a demo of using scripts for advanced users. They want to know if that's another webinar, maybe something posted on the site?

Nicholas Long:
So yes, I think we can make that into a Webinar in the next few months. It would definitely be for advanced users. We will also be posted on the site, on the OpenStudio.NREL.gov site and we could also provide a link on the content of where that is at the end of this presentation or where it will be in this presentation.

Michelle Resnick:
Great. The next question is, "Is it possible to use the EnergyPlus EMS in OpenStudio or maybe the set points managers?"

David Goldwasser:
So it's shown in the loops dialogue but the set point managers are actually accessible there. One of them had a single known set point and one had schedule. As far as EMS code the "Script" tab is the perfect place for that. So that's something we have not had a chance to directly support or build into OpenStudio but one of the scripts that we have it's just an inject IDF file. So you can make an IDF snippet that has the EMS code you want, referencing right, zone names in your model or surfaces and then every time you run the simulation that will get ejected and you can keep working on your OpenStudio model and then keep tweaking your EMS code.

Michelle Resnick:
So the next question is, "How do you account for elevators and other vertical equipment in spaces like stairs for example in model?

Nicholas Long:
Elevators and vertical equipment — I see where you're going. You're talking about how you break up the spaces. Typically when you do models you do not show vertical equipment, if you will. If you look at the image behind you actually that's on — as I did it the image on the last slide as is you see the tall building on our right hand side. Even in there you can see that probably the back was the elevator but they still broke it up into individual floors. It's very common to do that. You would typically put the load into the space where the motors are for the elevator, for instance, or where the escalator motors are typically. That is how you would handle it in energy modeling world.

Michelle Resnick:
The next question, "How do you make sure the HVAC system default setting works for the model?"

David Goldwasser:
Okay, so there's a few things to that. OpenStudio uses an object based model and there can be rules about what objects can be worth. So if you try to drop a zone onto the top part of the loop which is the supply demand side of the loop or rather the supply side we won't let you do it. So we'll stop some mistakes from happening right when you make your model but EnergyPlus can also fail if things are set up incorrectly and they have a very good reporting system that tells you what objects are wrong and then you can go back and fix those and rerun it.

Michelle Resnick:
The next question is, "Can OpenStudio be used outside the U.S. for commercial purposes?" We touched on that. Yeah.

David Goldwasser:
Yes.

Michelle Resnick:
Great. The next question is, "If we wanted to add a complex HVAC system like VRF to the model can we edit it within OpenStudio or do we have to edit it within the EnergyPlus IDF file?"

David Goldwasser:
Presently you would have to add it to the EnergyPlus IDF file for the VRF system that you mentioned. VRF is on our punch list to add to OpenStudio. We see the need for it as it's requested often and it's in our priority to have. I would expect to see it in the next three months if we can get it in the priority list.

Michelle Resnick:
The next question is somebody who is interested in more index training and asking where they can get that and download the user manuals.

David Goldwasser:
Yeah, so the OpenStudio.nrel.gov and then the YouTube page obviously sources. There will be training at Cymbal Madison. Is that August I believe? So I don't know if that's full or not but there are opportunities where we're starting to do more full day training. It's supposed to be just a quick one hour Webinars.

Michelle Resnick:
The next question is, "How is the Trimble buy out of SketchUp effected or likely to affect OpenStudio development?"

Nicholas Long:
We are in conversations with the new SketchUp, if you will and we are excited to continue our partnership with them and are excited to see where they are going. So we'll keep you abreast when we know more information as well.

Michelle Resnick:
The next question is, "Would you advise using OpenStudio for a lead EAC1 modeling and if not now then how long before you would recommend doing that or it's capable of doing that?"

David Goldwasser:
I mean getting the templates correct for what you might need for specific lead standard it's probably pretty easy. What we're also working on though is help putting reports that are set up out of the box or customizable so that it streamlines your workflow. So that's really the piece I think we're missing now but if you're willing to make sure your info data is appropriate and write your own results it works now. But we understand for a feasible workflow we want to have nice reporting that comes right out.

Michelle Resnick:
I think this is probably pretty similar. We had another question about lead workflow and reports integration. All right, the next question is, "How does the workflow differ for different user types, so basic, advanced and those in the middle? Are certain features or defaults enabled or disabled to those effects?"

David Goldwasser:
So in general the app is targeted kind of at the middle user group but if you're at the beginning side — I didn't show it — but we have user scripts that they make me advise our HA building and it'll just generate before you. So there are certain tools that make it easier if you're not comfortable or familiar with SketchUp's modeling tool. Then on the other side things like the "Script" tab that allow you to add EMS code do that. So and then outside of what we've shown you can actually run optimizations and parametric analysis purely in code without an application. So that's at the really high end of — back on the slides at the beginning it was way at the right of the analysis tools.

Michelle Resnick:
The next question is, "If you're using OpenStudio through a couple iterations of design, for example, building geometry how would you update the model without starting from scratch in SketchUp?" Then there's a second question about if you can reuse the templates you've created and if you have to reassign them all to the updated model.

David Goldwasser:
So yeah, you can definitely reuse the templates you've created and if you, for example, have a whole other set that are space types that have different names and someone else changed all those space types, you could inject those into your model. You would have to write the script right now to do that and similar for updating geometry. So you don't have to start over but depending upon, yeah, if there's a script that can automate some of it. You still have some work to do but the idea here is never to make people start over. If you enter data we should find a way to adapt it to your current model.

Michelle Resnick:
I think we touched on this one already.

David Goldwasser:
Yes, so if you wanted to have your own template HVAC system you could do that very similar to changing the normal templates. If you look at your packets you could find those and then tweak them. Like for example, systems nine and ten don't have heating. If you wanted something like system seven but without heating you could make a copy of it that didn't have heating or you could just add it and delete that as soon as you put it in.

Michelle Resnick:
The next question is if you can model PV systems, geothermal and heat pump systems?

David Goldwasser:
That is on our punch list for our September release, all three of those.

Michelle Resnick:
The next question is, "Is there a dedicated outdoor air system with VAV reheat in there?"

Nicholas Long:
I would say the same thing. This is on our punch list. We know that DOAS is important. VAV reheat is already there. So we just have to add the DOAS as piece. Sorry, dedicated outdoor air system.

Michelle Resnick:
The next question is, "Are you going to develop an auto desk revit plug-in?"

Nicholas Long:
Great question. We've thought about it. We've looked at some of the IFC code that was open sourced by auto desk and we saw how you could do it and it looks doable. I'd be very interested in having further discussions about that with whoever would like to.

Michelle Resnick:
Just a reminder to everyone the e-mail address is on the slide here how you can reach these folks and also the link to OpenStudio Website. The next question is, "Why did you choose idealized load and then assign a system?"

David Goldwasser:
You're right. That was more of a demonstration for you. If you didn't want to add an HVAC system you could just turn ideal air loads on. I actually didn't show this but as soon as I hooked up the system again we have a data model that has some intelligence that knows you can't have two systems attached. So behind the team if you went to the "Thermal Zone" tab it turned off ideal air loads for me as soon as I hooked up a loop. So that's one of those protections we put in. But I wanted to demonstrate it for people who weren't ready to drop in full mechanical systems.

Michelle Resnick:
Great. Next question is, "Is it possible to rotate the building for orientation and get the average consumptions for lead purposes?"

David Goldwasser:
Yes. There is a building level object that is just building rotation. So manually you could save your model, change that to 90, run it again and keep changing it or if you're going to do that a lot you could write a script that would automate that and run all four models for you.

Michelle Resnick:
The next question is, "Can you talk more about the optimization or parametric analysis capabilities?"

Nicholas Long:
So we have integrated a library called Dakota which is developed outside of Sandia National Lab and it allows us to have several of the sampling algorithms and the optimization algorithms and parametric algorithms. We are in the process of making that more accessible to the OpenStudio user, to the average user. We are expecting to have this tutorial as I mentioned earlier released. If you want more information just shoot us an e-mail and we can put you in contact with the lead on that project.

Michelle Resnick:
Great. The next question is, "Do you have domestic hot water load schedules available?"

David Goldwasser:
The standard domestic hot water schedules or the surface water heating schedules would come from, of all places, ASHRAE 1989. We have them in libraries. We have not exposed them because we currently don't have surface water heating available in OpenStudio. That is changing because that is, again, one of our highest priorities for the next release. I would expect surface water heating to be rolled in there in the next couple months. If you follow the iteration build you'd see it go in.

Michelle Resnick:
It looks like we're at our last question here. "What are the other methods available for creating the 3D model? You showed the manual geometry creation but one of your slides" — I think maybe we answered —

David Goldwasser:
Yeah, we got into that.

Michelle Resnick:
All right, I don't see any more questions on the Live Meeting. So I think we will go ahead and wrap up but you can submit questions via the website I believe and there are quite a wealth of tutorials and those types of things, a lot of documentation that they've been referencing throughout. Of course, the presenters, their e-mail addresses are here on the slides. We will be posting these presentation materials online. They will be on the Commercial Building Energy Alliance's website. They have a webinar archive section and the URL for that is eere.energy.gov/buildings/commercial/cbea_webinar_archives.html. We'd like to thank everybody for coming today. We appreciate your time. Feel free to submit questions if you have additional ones. Thank you.

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