Toward an EnergyPlus decision tool for evaluation of energy performance during early-stage building design

The paper analyses the benefits of energy analysis application in early-stage design. The research highlights the barriers that prevent this early integration and finally proposes the development of a simplified software tool tailored around the optimization of energy efficiency during early-stage design. Generally, the research aims to identify (a) the accuracy in results obtainable through progressive simplifications of the building model, (b) the most significant building parameters with respect to the output accuracy and (c) the maximum level of simplifications able to ensure the respect of time requirements dictated by early-stage building design and to maintain an acceptable level of accuracy. Here, a single case study of a large multi-storey office building is modelled starting with a detailed simulation performed through EnergyPlus and Openstudio software. The detailed model is then analysed and progressively simplified. At each progressive simplification step, a comparison with the detailed model is given in terms of building energy loads and power curves of the system. Total differences between detailed and simplified models are analysed to determine the quality of the results of the simplified model.