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NWX-NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY
Moderator: Jim Leyshon
06-09-11/11:00 am CT
Confirmation # 7769964
Page 1
NWX-NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY
Moderator: Jim Leyshon
June 9, 2011
11:00 am CT
Coordinator: Excuse me. This conference is being recorded. If there are any objections, you
may disconnect at this time. You may begin.
Woman: Hi everyone and welcome to the seminar series. As you can tell, our seminars
are now being recorded (unintelligible) and then any part of the seminar you
can go back on the (unintelligible) Web site and pull up the entire seminar
with all the voice and the slides and everything. So it’s great. We’re also be
posting slides in a PDF (and) you’ll be able to access all of that afterwards.
For those of you that are on the line you’ll see at the top -- if you’re not in full
screen mode -- there is a bar at the top that says Content Attendees Voice and
Video and Q &A, you can type in your Q & A as we go along. We’ll be able
to see those questions and we will respond to all your Q & A at the end of the
conference.
And finally if you are on the line if you could star 6 rather to mute your line
that would be great. Okay thanks. We’ll get started now.
NWX-NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY
Moderator: Jim Leyshon
06-09-11/11:00 am CT
Confirmation # 7769964
Page 2
I’d like to introduce Ellen Franconi from the Rocky Mountain Institute and
Amir Roth from the Department of Energy, and they’ll be speaking about
building and (unintelligible).
Man: How have you been?
Woman: All right. Thanks for coming. I’m so glad there are live people present in the
audience. It’s nice to be here with all of you (unintelligible) years and
(unintelligible) in Washington, DC. We’re speaking to his computer.
Man: (Unintelligible), right.
Man: Yes.
Man: I can open the (unintelligible).
Woman: Hi. If you could press star 6 to mute your line that’d be great. We’re getting a
lot of feedback. Thank you.
So the topic of the presentation is building (simulation) model and how to
reach its fullest potential for impacting the design and deployment of low
energy buildings.
So we’re going to start off with introductions. I’m going to tell you a little bit
about the Rocky Mountain Institute, Amir (unintelligible) about (DOE) and
then we’ll also explain why our organizations are interested in building energy
modeling. Amir will tie that interest into a strategic plan and what items
encompass building energy modeling.
NWX-NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY
Moderator: Jim Leyshon
06-09-11/11:00 am CT
Confirmation # 7769964
Page 3
I’m going to talk about the Building and energy modeling Innovation Summit
which are my hostess in March in Boulder and Amir was there and we
discussed a lot of critical issues that we felt were challenging to industry to
reach its full potential to impact low energy buildings, design, and
deployment.
We had a lot of discussions during the summit. We ended up with several
work plans to address different areas of the industry and I’m going to pose a
couple of questions to Amir related to some of these critical needs and he’ll
inform us as to how their strategic plan overlaps or doesn’t with some of
these. Then we’ll open it up for general Q & A for all of you that’s on the line.
I work for the Rocky Mountain Institute which is the non-profit. It was started
in the early 1980s by Amory Lovins who’s our chief scientist. Our overall
mission is to help reduce the US and the world’s dependence on fossil fuels
and we have several different work centers.
One is the electrical utility focused area (unintelligible) environment, a focus
area in which I work in (when we have to do) transportation. So we tried to
achieve this overall mission directly by working with clients that we do
consulting work like any building/energy service provider would.
But we also use (unintelligible) dollars - donor dollars to identify where
within the industry things aren’t working well. Where they just need a little
facilitation or perhaps there’s problems, but no one would make a profit by
interjecting themselves there. So this is where we can help out and hopefully
have impact to work towards our mission. And we call this practice
institutional acupuncture.
NWX-NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY
Moderator: Jim Leyshon
06-09-11/11:00 am CT
Confirmation # 7769964
Page 4
So now I’ll turn it over to Amir where he will introduce the (elite) and their
interests to build the energy model.
Amir Roth: Thanks Ellen and thanks Rachel. Hopefully you guys can track what I’m
saying and sort of run the clicker without me having to say click.
Thanks everybody. I’m Amir Roth from DOE, the Building Technologies
Program, building (unintelligible) modeling tools Manager. In the spirit of
saving greenhouse gases, I decided not to fly to (unintelligible) for this event,
but rather try to do this from my desk.
And so as you all know DOE is a far larger and more layered institution than
Rocky Mountain Institute and we have several levels of mission statements
starting from the secretary level at the top and drilling down to my desk. And
so the top level statement of DOE is, you know, our goal is to ensure the
security and prosperity of America by addressing America’s energy,
environmental, and explicitly nuclear challenges through scientific
technology.
I hope that static is not in my line. Somewhat below DOE is the office that I
work in which is the Energy Efficiency and Renewable’s office, and our
mission is to invest in clean energy technologies that strengthen the US
economy, protecting our environment and, you know, here we start to align a
little bit with RMI reducing our dependence on foreign oil.
And then just below is that is the Building Technology Program mission
which is to define, develop, and deploy techniques and tools that make
buildings more energy efficient, productive, and affordable. And so this is
actually quite a big issue.
NWX-NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY
Moderator: Jim Leyshon
06-09-11/11:00 am CT
Confirmation # 7769964
Page 5
As it turns out if you just do the math BTP our mission essentially, we’re
responsible for about 10% of total world energy consumption. So going to the
next slide and the next slide after that.
If you actually look at, you know, what our charge is which is US buildings
again as I said US buildings account for 10% of all the energy consumed in
the world. If we actually just took all of the buildings in the US and made a
country out of them, we would be number three in the world behind only the
rest of the US, China but still ahead of places like Russia, Japan, India and,
you know, far ahead of everywhere else.
And so, you know, taking that challenge on -- if we can go to the next slide
now -- the question there is, you know, if we try to drill from our mission
statement, you know, how much more efficient are we trying to make
buildings. You know, is building energy modeling one of the tools techniques
or technologies that’s required to reach our efficiency target. And given that it
might be how much DOE, ERE, and the Building Technologies Program
invest in developing, defining, and deploying building energy modeling. Sorry
for all the acronyms just trying to squeeze things onto one line.
Well how much can building energy modeling help? Well if our target, you
know, is for net zero energy buildings then building energy modeling is an
absolute necessity.
But here’s an analysis done last year by RMI which shows that if we stay at
current efficiency and project forward to a demand at 2050 then, you know,
using sort of conventional deployment of existing technologies we will be
able to just about get back to current consumption levels.
NWX-NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY
Moderator: Jim Leyshon
06-09-11/11:00 am CT
Confirmation # 7769964
Page 6
If we want to go below that specifically if we want to go to a level where we
can create buildings that can supply themselves locally using PV or wind, then
we really have to deploy integrated design to the (light blue balls) in there and
that is required. And so integrated design effectively requires building energy
modeling because you have to, you know, how the different conservation
measures play together and to know which packages you need for your
building, your needs, your climate, so on so forth.
(Unintelligible) like a little graphic that’ll pop up now...
Woman: Oh. We (unintelligible) about what’s this term reinventing fire and this
graphic came from RMI which their in the process of publishing a book called
Reinventing Fire and this is a concept about (unintelligible) with the world’s
(unintelligible) fossil fuels and putting forth different strategies for trying to
achieve them.
Amir Roth: Okay. So we can click forward to the next slide. And so given this, I’ve made
my own little mission statement and AR just refers to me not to any program.
And that’s to help make building energy modeling into a tool that DOE can
constantly use to meet its energy efficiency goals.
And what exactly is entailed in that? Let’s go forward again. So we are, you
know, this is the (royal) we here have put together, you know, a little tool
strategic plan going forward here are some of the guiding principles of that
plan and it’s going to be an open plan very inclusive. You know, we’re going
to try to engage with as many constituencies as we can.
The RMI event, you know, was a great forum for us starting to do that. We’re
going to use open standards and open development platforms, open licensing.
The click again.
NWX-NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY
Moderator: Jim Leyshon
06-09-11/11:00 am CT
Confirmation # 7769964
Page 7
You know, as we go forward we’re essentially, you know, what we’re going
to try to do is identify, you know, what we think/what we see as the collective
needs of the modeling community. Simultaneously identify what the modeling
community can already do at various places. Try to connect the dots where the
dots exist, but they don’t and then create new dots and fill-in where we
actually see voids.
And at the same time the point below is kind of important. Internally for
ourselves, we are going to try to build up rather modeling capabilities
internally. Hopefully those will lead to increased confidence in modeling, you
know, by our food chain and the administration and eventually Congress (of)
such that eventually we will be able to build up, you know, more substantial
programs that are based on modeling and actual building performance.
And so the next slide stress a little bit of the specific roadmap and building
energy modeling features that we have targeted for the next couple of years.
You can read through this. It’s kind of a (litany) about actually half a litany,
but the big half the important half. So we’re going to continue doing, you
know, basic R&D on modeling, you know, and enhancing our (engine) energy
plus.
We are going to unpack our documentation, put everything online, enhance
support for building energy modeling. We’re working interoptibility. We’re
working on putting up repositories of models for component systems - entire
buildings. We have models for output to allow people to, you know, pick up
things rather than recreate them every time.
NWX-NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY
Moderator: Jim Leyshon
06-09-11/11:00 am CT
Confirmation # 7769964
Page 8
Something that’s really not on my desk, but which will be cross referenced to
my desk is repositories and open databases of real building data that you can
cross reference with model data.
And then we’re working on just making the modeling problem or the
modeling reducing effort required to create models by models input
acquisition calibration.
And then the final thing we’re doing -- the final big ticket item -- is we’re
bring up a number of test facilities and instrumented buildings in our labs and
building energy hub at the foot of the Navy yard. And we will be using those
to make a big push on model validation.
There’s a few more points below. Click please. And so the questions are really
are these the right target areas for DOE to do. You know, how are we going to
execute these? Should we go to the lab, should we work with vendors, you
know, should we just open this up to all comers. Should we, you know, just
throw money out there and let people compete over it.
And finally, how do we ensure buy in and uptake of, you know, this
technology. And of course there is always the issue of funding. And so to try
to answer these questions, I think RMI solved some of these questions as well
and graciously put together the (Ben) Summit to try to get a grip on some of
those and so I’ll kick it back to Ellen now to go over that.
Ellen Franconi: Thanks, Amir. Oh, you want to talk about the elephant?
Amir Roth: No that was the funding.
NWX-NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY
Moderator: Jim Leyshon
06-09-11/11:00 am CT
Confirmation # 7769964
Page 9
Ellen Franconi: Oh okay. I missed that. Yes so as Amir mentioned, we did host this two-day
energy modeling summit. It was then identified as sort of this acupuncture
point within the (history) that could use some support. So we invited about 60
professionals within the building energy modeling industry to get together to
collaborate, cooperate, coordinate. And it was for me being within the
industry it was quite the happening. I think as Ron said, “It’s like why
wouldn’t I want to spend two days inside with the geekiest,” you know,
“energy modelers (and) find out.”
I mean so if you were walking by, you would say well that is a geeky group of
people. But if you were in it, you were probably like wow this is a party. This
is a (bema palooza).
And I apologize that there were people who wanted to attend and we couldn’t
accommodate because of our limited capacity. (Kendra Tuper) whose
picture’s there in the upper left, she did a great job organizing not only (the)
event but some documentation, some reports that went along with the event.
So we had a pre-read document which is over 100 pages and that consist of
we interviewed many people in the industry, many people who were coming
to (suck) out where is the industry at, and we asked folks to read it so
everybody would be on the same page. Because there are people who are
more into tools, more modelers, more owners (unintelligible) services so the
whole gamut of the industry came together.
And so we also have a post-summit report. So this is a play-by-play
description of what went on and you can get both these documents RMI Web
site and that’s the last slide of this presentation. You’ll see that link.
And we did the event in coordination with some partners and those partners
include Azray, (IBPSA) which is the International Building Fund Simulation
NWX-NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY
Moderator: Jim Leyshon
06-09-11/11:00 am CT
Confirmation # 7769964
Page 10
Association (of) the USA. Group with that with the USTBC and with IMT
which is the Institute for Market Transformation.
Alan Preston: Ellen, question? I didn’t see AIA on the list. Were they solicited?
((Crosstalk))
Ellen Franconi: …I don't know if they were official partners, but they were there. So as I
mentioned the pre-read, we asked all participants to give us a vision statement
of where they would like to see the industry go and you see there’s a
statement there from Mike Brandemuehl which is a complete 180 degrees
from where the industry’s at right now. So I think this was a good way to
understand what were people experiences and where they were coming from.
But we did have some single speakers such as Lynn Bellenger, the current
President of Azray and she had (unintelligible) to achieve this meeting. We
had several panels with some debate, but I think one of my favorite events
was something called the Ignite and maybe some of you are familiar with the
Ignite which they have in Boulder and other cities where citizens can put forth
some idea and if they’re selected they can talk to me for about 10 minutes
about anything.
So we asked everybody else who was not already involved to please consider
doing a 1 minute Ignite where they could talk about a topic of their choice.
And so these were pretty creative and somewhat unexpected.
For example, Victor Olgyay of RMI talked about he wanted a new ap and this
ap was going to solve all of his energy modeling problems.
((Crosstalk))
NWX-NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY
Moderator: Jim Leyshon
06-09-11/11:00 am CT
Confirmation # 7769964
Page 11
So he talked about coop-petition where even though we were competitors
working in the industry that it was possible to see where we could work
together for the common ground.
We had two panels. One was a practitioner and customer needs panel. Within
this panel it was a little bit of therapy I mean for practitioners, customers,
users of services to get out there and say what they were challenged by, what
they had faced in the industry, and what they hoped to see change.
Software developer panel as well. They reviewed some of their priorities for
improving tools through some of the challenges they faced. We had talking
head states where the level of expertise that one thought should be required to
do modeling was discussed and there were totally opposing views. One of us
thought that there should be some sort, you know, threshold that you don’t
make these interfaces easy to use because you want someone to have some
base knowledge to get into it and others was more no we have to make the
interface better so we capture a wider audience.
And then of course the level of automation was a big discussion (of) how far
can we go. In general it was concluded semi-automation at best and really the
challenge was how do you automate a process that has yet to be defined.
For about six hours of the two days we broke out into breakout groups and
these categories -- these five categories listed here -- kind of spell out from the
pre-read document just stakeholders and different ways actually to intervene
within the system to try to help to stay (calm).
NWX-NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY
Moderator: Jim Leyshon
06-09-11/11:00 am CT
Confirmation # 7769964
Page 12
So the marketing demand focus, their focus was instead of just being passive
and letting the market do what it will, you know, how can we interject
ourselves in trying to get modeling to use where it can have the most impact.
For engines and platforms of course people can’t have impact that they don’t
have tools to help them do the job, how can they best serve the industry.
Methods and prophecies, that was about how to improve modeling
effectiveness by better defining methods.
Support and resources, again when you model you have to make a lot of
assumptions. How can we provide data to qualify those assumptions by data.
In all it’s just to help with input and output in quality control.
And lastly this will all come together better if we have a skilled work force.
So how do we do the education and training to have a skill set?
So now I’m going to go through each of these breakout groups. I’ve got a
series of three or four slides for each. I’m going to talk about the business of
usual. As usual that was defined by the group for this area of the industry what
their vision was for the future and then they came up with a work plan as to
how they thought they could get there. I must say this is very abbreviated so if
you’d like to look at this in more detail, please see the post-summit report.
So the breakout group I’m going to talk about is the market drivers and
customer demand. So they characterize business as usual in this area of the
industry that while it was experiencing tremendous growth of very
(unintelligible) increase, yes they also recognized that this increased growth or
the applications the use of modeling was not necessarily getting us to achieve
these low energy builds.
NWX-NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY
Moderator: Jim Leyshon
06-09-11/11:00 am CT
Confirmation # 7769964
Page 13
Some of you probably have done modeling and in the industry we often
differentiate between doing a lead model versus doing like a design assistance
model. (I think) that sometimes we can get involved too late in the process,
you really aren’t impacting anything and you’re really just going through the
motions to quantify how many points. So that’s sort of an example of what
they’re talking about.
They also recognized that there was somewhat of a damaged public
perception of the value of modeling. Again, this stems from customers with
models not always understanding how they should be used or are best used
and thinking that all models should predict energy use. But I think there’s
benefit of bad press or a little bit of confusion about what the purpose of
modeling is which takes away from its credibility.
The vision that the market demand group came up with was that they wanted
building energy modeling to be used by a wider audience and that could be for
more types of buildings or by more people. They wanted to make sure that the
industry understood what the value of them was. And lastly that the industry
has proved itself, it was credible, it had a proven track record.
What’s the question?
Man: Yes. Just what is...
((Crosstalk))
Ellen Franconi: Okay. So on the upper right represent just the wide expanding modeling to
not just be big buildings, but perhaps to be smaller buildings too. And how
NWX-NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY
Moderator: Jim Leyshon
06-09-11/11:00 am CT
Confirmation # 7769964
Page 14
could we do that? And the other one is about trying to direct the market to
have more of the impact we hope it will.
And this is a graphic from the Azray Building Energy Quotient and within this
you get what’s called an acid rating based on the design of building and once
it’s built you do this performance rating.
And so because this is starting to indicate how the buildings actually
performing and advertise that and make it available, then people start to
understand and differentiate between building performance so we actually get
to an outcome base target or application that we believe will have a greater
impact than perhaps one just based on the design. Thanks for asking.
So some of the main items that came out of their work plan was to develop a
steering committee. It felt like an important topic. It wasn’t being addressed
by any existing groups in the industry and they thought (unintelligible) effort
to try to think about this more and push it forward.
They thought that one thing that would help them was to have a market
potential study performed about what factors are there out there that would
benefit the most for modeling and how could we tap into those.
Market research would be how do you approach them, how do you brand it to
make that happen. And lastly, they thought it would be important to develop
case studies of successful done projects that demonstrate the business case for
modeling to show the value that you get including the service.
Okay. So now I have a couple of questions for Amir that came out of this
markets and drivers discussion. So my first one has to do with their work plan
and they wanted to support the expansion of modeling applications. And I
NWX-NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY
Moderator: Jim Leyshon
06-09-11/11:00 am CT
Confirmation # 7769964
Page 15
wondered if there was anything within your program Amir that was
addressing this need they identify?
Amir Roth: Okay. So I don’t know if this is exactly the same question, but the question
(sure) moved a little since I saw it last. But DOE’s basic response to this is
that there is basically two sides to try to expand building (as you’re) modeling.
You can work on the supply side and you can work on the demand side. And
for right now, we are primarily going to concern ourselves with the supply
side. So ultimately, you know, in order to incentive people to do building as
you’re modeling not just for the EAC1 credit, you know, to do it early and
often when you can actually make a big difference.
You need some real money behind that incentive. You need good tax credits
or you need a big stick, you know, in the form of a (plumber’s) base code. In
order to get support, you know, for those kinds of measures we need to show
that building as you’re modeling is both very liable, you know, and not overly
burdensome. And so right now we’re primarily focused on the supply side to
try to both reduce the costs of building as you’re modeling and to try to
improve its credibility.
One of the things we’ve already started to do is to create this sort of shadow
building as you’re modeling demand in which we’re doing some of the things
that to the customer, to the user look like prescriptive measures are actually
building energy modeling sort of done in the background or done sort of on
(moph) ahead of time.
So this is how for instance we rolled out the 179D tax credit, a qualification
tool. We just did hundreds and hundreds of thousands of simulations to
decide, you know, which combination of buildings, climate zones, and
NWX-NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY
Moderator: Jim Leyshon
06-09-11/11:00 am CT
Confirmation # 7769964
Page 16
prescriptive packages would qualify for the credit or for a sub portion of the
credit. And so users never see building (as) modeling, but it is there.
Ellen Franconi: And my other question had to do with case studies. They recognize the need
for this and I wondered if your strategic plan had any efforts related to case
studies within it?
Amir Roth: So all of you that are actually present at Golden right now are presumably
sitting in the best study we have of building energy modeling which is the
RSF. RSF’s been a great success story for building energy modeling both
from a technical standpoint and from a profit standpoint and we are pushing
that success story as much as we can.
We will push and market and document as many such stories as we can as
people bring us. I said I think made in a comment if Ellen clicks forward,
you’ll see that I said we are looking to other places to be good sources of
success stories for us. (Unintelligible) is actually part of DOE which is
responsible for the federal buildings, you know, NASA and it’s new AMI
center, you know, GSA to be good sources of success stories.
But I think that I’m going to retract and say that, you know, we internally also
have the machinery to go and hunt down some of these stories in our
commercial building partnerships and maybe some residential success stories
as well.
One of the important needs right now is that we need success stories not just
for new construction like RSF, but for (unintelligible) as well because that’s
where the large opportunity lies and so, you know, any and all. When it’s time
for RSF to be retrofitted, you know, which should be any day now right. It’s
getting a little long in the tooth, we will push that success story as well.
NWX-NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY
Moderator: Jim Leyshon
06-09-11/11:00 am CT
Confirmation # 7769964
Page 17
Ellen Franconi: Thanks. Just doing a time check. We’ve got maybe 20 minutes to get through
four more groups and so I’ll try to move through these quickly.
The next group is the simulation engines and platforms group and it’s part of
their business as usual. They identified several tool deficiencies including the
(unintelligible) for (learning) new tools. And because of this they realized that
most modelers stick to the programs they were used to instead of to maybe
even better programs just because they understood its idiosyncrasies and were
more comfortable with it.
Also, there’s a need to do a lot of input pre-processing where you might have
to go from design data or manufactured data into a (cuperated) to get it into
the input (unintelligible).
Another issue was that with a single project a modeler may have to draw from
several different tools. I mean they might use one whole building modeling
program and supplement different pieces with different programs or
spreadsheet calculations (unintelligible). So again another inefficiency forcing
redundancy efforts.
They came together. I must say the developer panel in the group, I mean if
anybody were competitors they were and they certainly did work together
with the intent of (coop-petition), but I think that they stated that they were
really quite challenged because the programs were on competing platforms
and they don’t have compatibility. So even if they have this intention for
(sure) development, it made it pretty challenging.
Their vision for tools was to have great abilities to model conflict systems,
they wanted to have more credibility through validation of algorism through
NWX-NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY
Moderator: Jim Leyshon
06-09-11/11:00 am CT
Confirmation # 7769964
Page 18
lab and field testing, they had a lot of adjectives to describe improvements
transparency where people could understand the algorisms, understand how
the input values were going to be used, flexible scalable that a single program
could be appropriate for a small building or large building, a little level of
detail or much more detailed. And then extensible meaning that it would be
modular and you could add on new equipment modules or system modules
very easily.
Here’s a summary of their work plan. They wanted to continue their
collaboration, but there was no venue within the industry to do that so I guess
the USA did step up to say that they would play that role and organize these
meetings.
While inoperability was certainly a big issue, they tended to focus on things
they felt they could (evolve) as sort of volunteers. So they wanted to work
more with other groups specifically with like the market and demand group. If
they’re trying to expand the use how can tools help that? How can the market
demand direct tool development and also methods and prophecies.
How can standardized methods be incorporated into tools and they certainly
did want to work with organizations like (unintelligible) to develop standards
so that the transition from the standard definition to taking into software
would be relatively smooth.
And then they certainly make the most of I guess influence DOE to invest in
big ticket items that were generic and could benefit them all because as small
a firm they just didn’t have the staff capacity to take them on.
So now I have a couple of questions for Amir regarding tools. You had stated
during the summit that originally DOE’s involvement in tool development
NWX-NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY
Moderator: Jim Leyshon
06-09-11/11:00 am CT
Confirmation # 7769964
Page 19
was driven by a need to meet established performance goals, and I just
wondered if that’s still the case today and if you just comment on that.
Amir Roth: Yes. So if you could click forward so that I can talk to the bullet point. So a
couple of things about DOE and building as you’re modeling tool
development. Let’s first make a distinction between engine development such
as DOE 2 initially and now energy plus which is, you know, an activity that
DOE has engaged in for many years and then some of the engines or tools
which we most recently, you know, got involved in developing.
So as far as engines are concerned, DOE still sees that as a pillar of our
activities in them. I mean that is a big ticket heavy lift effort that we don’t
really see either a single entity in the (Ben) community or collection of
entities sort of self-organizing to take on and fund.
And so, you know, we are committed, you know, to continuing to develop and
support building engine modeling engines. But Energy’s plus, you know, or
its (follow on) specifically, you know, in keeping that, you know, free open
and transparent. And more recently we’re actually augmenting this goal to not
only make this engine powerful, but to make it easier to use both from a
technical standpoint and I’m sure people would be happy to hear this from a
licensed standpoint also.
The other stuff that we’re doing, you know, other things like Open Studio
which many of you from, you know, who have worked with Enron in the past,
you know, maybe familiar with. These are things that started up either
organically or top down as efforts to support either our own internal activities.
So for instance, you know, we’re doing research into co-development and so
we need to manage, you know, large number of simulations so we built up
internal tools for doing that.
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We needed to create reference buildings so we built up tools for doing that or
sometimes we have specific programs that we need to roll out. So for instance
the 179D tax deduction credit and so we built tools in support of that. You
know, the fact is is that we are just opening these tools up and allowing others
to build on them.
And, you know, while we’re on this point I just want to stress that there’s
sometimes or (infused) in RMI at the developer’s panel it sort of came up, you
know, that people in the industry had this, you know, concept that DOE is in
the design tool business from a competitive standpoint or that we are, you
know, saturating the market with free software so that vendors subsequently,
you know, cannot compete with.
So I want to stress that that really is not the case. So DOE is not in the design
tool business or even in the integrated energy evaluation tool business. You
know, we don’t see any of our products, you know, as directly competing
with, you know, any particular manufacturer. All we really want to do is try to
give, you know, these vendors the easiest access possible to state of the art,
you know, modeling. And so whatever we can do to make that happen is what
we see as (the) passport.
Ellen Franconi: You know, I think we’re going to have to move through these questions a
little quickly to get through them all.
Amir Roth: Okay.
Ellen Franconi: The next one quick responding to the big ticket item. Maybe you already
started talking...
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Amir Roth: Yes. So basically we -- if you actually look at our investment -- most of our
current investment actually goes to big ticket items things like inoperability,
coaching relation, testing and validation, you know, using instrumented
buildings, and the test facilities. That’s going to be a big thing for us in FY12
and FY13 and we’re getting some new test facilities at LBL and Oakridge,
you know, sort of next generation advance modeling using equation based
models as opposed to, you know, more traditional (unintelligible) models.
A lot of our money is spent on that now. So yes this is a - I mean if you
actually take a look at most of our effort is on, you know, what should be
called big ticket stuff.
Ellen Franconi: Thanks. So the next break (up) group that we’re going to review is the
methods and prophecies and they characterize their business as usual as
oftentimes the client all different expectations about what the modeling would
provide and what the application was designed for.
They also recognize that there totally was a lack of defined procedures for
building energy modeling which led to inconsistencies, irreproducibility, and
of course somewhat of a (loss) of creditability.
And lastly that (there was) just limited opportunities for modelers to be
informed how good their assumptions were because there wasn’t a
(unintelligible) between a design model and how the building actually
performed. And this of course goes beyond just (mature) design teams also
don’t often get feedback about how successful (unintelligible).
So the vision was to hopefully in the future have the (unintelligible) and
understand the value proposition of the modeling guidelines and that was in
the guidelines it could consist of perhaps a set of procedures for one piece.
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Maybe another piece may be an actual standardized (approach) and for those
that could be very well-defined and perhaps data driven maybe those become
automated into tools.
And so we’d like to get (this) guideline together and it will be an evolving
process. So the last point is that these standardization efforts to flush this
process out would be ongoing.
This is an example of (unintelligible) concept of (unintelligible). How do you
slice and dice, you know, all the pieces of modeling across a bunch of
different applications?
So we looked at when modeling was used throughout this time process. What
kind of input data, what’s the comparison, was it about (compliance), or was it
(fiction) as we’re kind of working through some concepts and trying put forth
almost a master plan for this guidelines generalization automation effort.
So I facilitated this group and what we came up with for some of our key
work plan items was to develop a customer approach ensured to educate them
as to the use of modules. Fortunately we had somebody who (unintelligible)
Colorado GEO, (unintelligible) Energy Office brochure (unintelligible)
features so that actually just got published.
We’re trying to work on this method and prophecies brainwork (stuff like
that) for (unintelligible) showed you to put forth a roadmap for the rest of the
industry to (tune) and refine and come up with some guidelines and then do
the ongoing standardization effort.
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So related to this Amir, I pretty much was wondering if again the strategic
plan included the creation of modeling guidelines, endorsed standardization
(effort).
Amir Roth: Right now our strategic plan consist of, you know, just observing what’s
going on. We feel that there is good momentum, you know, for creations of
the various necessary standards by organizations like Azray, like (ComNet),
you know, if we see voids come up in the future we may fund or get involved
in standard development. But for right now, you know, we’re happy to hang
back and see what develops.
As for automation of standardized processes whatever is standardized, we’re
already committed to putting (unintelligible) our own free tools.
Ellen Franconi: Okay. We have two more areas that the industry (unintelligible). This one is
(important) resources and pretty much their business as usual was a lack, a
lack, a lack. A lack of supporting data, a lack of information resources, and
because of this it contributed to inconsistencies and irreproducibility; a
thought echoed a lot through a lot of these different breakout groups.
So their vision was the creation of these data and knowledge resources. For
the data they hoped to have benchmark data for evaluating inputs and
checking out. Actually figuring out what (apostle) range of values were for
input. A lot of times you present (unintelligible) answer and that sort of
(unintelligible) this uncertainty associated or probability we could kind of
show what the uncertainty is.
Measure field data to improve assumptions. Actually instead of
(unintelligible) characterization manufacturer’s data which is an
(unintelligible) and then to try to (unintelligible) work around.
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There are some efforts just starting through IBITSA. They have something
called the (BIM Book Wiki) which is the building energy model book of
knowledge. The framework is there and anybody who is willing and we would
be very excited if you would take the time to add some of your knowledge to
this Wiki. So just hope the industry will come together and put information in
a more organized way. (Unintelligible) site there. I mean many of you might
happen to some of the buildings and (unintelligible) servers which are great,
but it’s a little unorganized and hopefully through this group process we’ll get
a better comprehensive database.
So the work plan for important resources was to put together some of the
repositories for (unintelligible) and BIM information to develop a BIM
database to include field data to inform model inputs, and these occupant
dependent characterizations which are so hard to pin down. And lastly to
come up with some sort of QC data so that people have a better sense of
where the results are (unintelligible).
Man: (Unintelligible).
Ellen Franconi: Okay. So my question for Amir, so it seems like the knowledge base stuff is
being tackled by IBITSA and with help from the rest of the industry, but what
about these database needs? Is that within your plan or prior current work?
Amir Roth: Yes to both. You know, we definitely have some projects already underway,
you know, to try to collect data from a bunch of sources, a bunch of streams.
You know, we have a project looking at data from real buildings. There’s one
that looks at annual data and the incentive of various conservation measures.
We have another one in the works that looks at sort of fine grade from real
buildings.
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We have (Unintelligible) is putting together something called the Building
Component Library which is model input data. We may put up, you know,
model data actually model output data from various models later on and then
our hope is to try to, you know, cross reference these databases together to try
to give you sort of multiple views into what’s possible and, you know, and
what, you know, could be going on with any particular building.
Yes, so these things are already underway and definitely in the plans.
Ellen Franconi: And then I know this is a little outside your area within DOE, but there has
been that decision not to release the (Sevix) 2007 data and there’s a bunch of
suspensions for the 2011 survey, and I just wondered if you could comment
on that?
Amir Roth: Yes. We certainly know that this happened and, you know, we see it as a blow
to the industry. Internally we’re having some discussions about how to cope
and, you know, how to adjust and maybe compensate for this. But as far as I
know, we don’t have any concrete plans to step in.
Ellen Franconi: Okay. So our last area to talk about is education training certification. So this
is characterized by having a lack of formalized curriculum which although
some of us did go through the Building Systems Program and might have
even taken the modeling class, but I think we’re few in between
(unintelligible) opportunities.
A lack of the comprehensive’s (body) knowledge and this results in models
being self-taught and following ad hoc methods again this inconsistency.
Irreproducibility certification programs are being offered. Azray has one, AEE
has one for modelers. They just (unintelligible) uptake so far. Azray
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(unintelligible) about 130 people have been certified (unintelligible) year and
a half and the AEE’s about (unintelligible).
So their vision is to -- they know there’s a lot of difficulty -- (unintelligible)
and just want to (unintelligible). They also thought it would be great if instead
of just having a certification where it’s like pass/fail to put forth some sort of
system where you could assess somebody’s skill level and kind of help them
with their professional builder knowledge appropriately from where they’re at.
And then ultimately they hope that there’s a bunch of well-educated and
trained modelers out there to pick up on all this modeling that’s going to
happen.
A quick comment about -- we talked about this -- the (degradation) of
(modeling). This is a concept that we came up with at RMI called (Black Belt)
energy modeling to say that there are these different categories and perhaps
felt that one could learn and there’s different skills associated with each so
somebody could come and say, “Oh, I can do this (unintelligible).” Then they
could maybe plug into training modules that would help them work their way
towards the master.
And what they want to do for their work plan is to form a committee to keep
working on these issues. Collaboratively they want to check out the
certification efforts because we have these competing programs perhaps they
should consolidate it and then to make the most of materials out there to try to
get them available to more people through webinars and the like.
Okay. So for education Amir, I was just wondering - oh so going on in Denver
right now actually is a bunch of industry professionals who came together
through DOE’s effort to define job descriptions for (build) service
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professionals. Could you explain how that’s related to supporting the
industry’s educational needs.
Amir Roth: Yes. So this is actually a project that’s managed by a colleague of mine (Senol
Concard) who actually was also at the RMI summit. I’m just going to speak
on her behalf here.
So really what we’re doing is - what this (positive) is trying to develop
national guidelines for building service professional categories where energy
modeling is one of the categories and simply looking at tasks, you know,
skills and knowledge required, and abilities and we see this really as defining
sort of the final destination and, you know, which essentially helps inform or
set a goal, you know, for the educational needs. So this basically gives you the
educational target, but doesn’t actually tell you how to get there.
Ellen Franconi: And what about BIM’s specific curriculum development? Are you getting
involved in that at all?
Amir Roth: Not directly. So again our focus is on creating and standardizing the open
knowledge base. We’re not actually supporting curriculum development, but
the hope is that accommodation of this knowledge base as well as the goals
that are defined by the job categories, you know, will allow people or will
help people, you know, create, you know, educational paths and educational
modules.
Ellen Franconi: And which open knowledge base is that?
Amir Roth: I think some of it will be in - so for modeling we may use BIM Book. For the
other ones, I am not sure, you know, what the planned knowledge base - sort
of what the planned vehicle is.
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Ellen Franconi: Okay.
Amir Roth: Some of this is also run out of DOE (Fund) Office by Michelle Fox and so this
is the part that I sort of know a little about. So I would appreciate it if during
the Q & A session there would be no questions about this.
Ellen Franconi: Okay. So this slide is a summary of the (unintelligible) key items that came
out of the break (out) group discussions. And then the DOE, you know, do
they already have funds invested which are the green dollars? Do they just
like it? Sure, if the industry can do it we all should have or potentially as a
future to get them.
We put this slide together just to help with the Q & A to remind you of what’s
been said and help with the mapping. We also have another slide here which
more aligns directly with specific initiatives which DOE is doing that ties
directly to some of these needs that were addressed through the summit.
So yes. Thank you so much for attending. I know it was really building energy
model specific, but at a high level which is hard to find just the right audience
for that. If you have any questions, we’d be happy to take them. If you’re on
the webinar you can email them or not email them, you can use the Q & A
feature on the menu. Is that correct? If you’re in the room, feel free to...
Man: So sounds like you’re focused very much on simulation in the small single
building at a time. Is there any look at simulation in the large something that
can help the grid operators looking at impacts of different demand response,
processes, or how energy efficient investments in one area might impact grid
operations? Anything using all of the mountains of AMI data that’s going to
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start rolling in to generate models without having to go and audit 11 million
buildings or something?
Ellen Franconi: Yes. You know, that wasn’t talked about explicitly. I think that’s why the
markets and demand group wanted to (unintelligible) to sort of broaden.
(Unintelligible) might have been limited probably by the people who were
there who had that broad perspective. But I think that’s exactly where they
wanted to go to find out, you know, where is the best potential for savings and
(then) target it.
Amir Roth: Should I pitch in here?
Ellen Franconi: Yes.
Amir Roth: So we have some, you know, projects, you know, that are related to demand
response, you know, to agent based modeling of building portfolios, you
know, to try to do portfolio analysis. But they’re really separate, you know,
from our core building as you’re modeling in the small activities. You know,
they’re not, you know, they’re sort of managed independently by different
(BTD) groups. You know, this is our (silence) of excellence model. You
know, the hope is to get those, you know, talking to each other and connect it
up at some point in the future. But, you know, for right now I think each
group is going to get a, you know, going solo for the time being unfortunately.
Ellen Franconi: I’m going to take one question that was sent through the QA feature. It’s from
Ted and it’s stating that they have case studies of (unintelligible) and how do
we get this information to you and how could we build on this.
And I would say if Amir can’t use it, RMI certainly can use it and we are in
the process of developing some case studies and we would be happy to work
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with somebody and you can email me directly. The last screen has my contact
information. Amir, do you want to add anything to that?
Amir Roth: No (unintelligible) an analogist. I’ll just poach from her.
Ellen Franconi: Okay. Let’s see. Any other questions here? Marcus has a question that says
AIA has a working group developing (unintelligible) for using energy
modeling in its design process. Is there any information on the scope of their
work?
Yes. I know (Kendra) is involved with Bill Worthen and working on that
project and I did share with them for example that Colorado GEO document
because it kind of is doing the same thing. So I think we want to keep
everybody coordinated to build on what’s there and take it to the correct
audience as needed.
Okay here’s one question. Can you explain how you expect users would use
leverage the cross reference repositories of real building data?
Do you have any examples of that Amir with your currently funded work?
Amir Roth: So most of the usage of those right now -- most of the plan usage -- is going to
be internal actually. So we’re going to try to use those, you know, to create
tools for calibrating input models of buildings and for validating the algorisms
that we use for modeling. You know, so the data will be - for the time being
it’s a case of where we have specific use cases are internal but we will keep,
you know, things open and the data available just so that, you know, it’s out
there and anybody who wants to look at it or verify what we’ve done, you
know, or come up with their own usages can do so.
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Ellen Franconi: And I think for the support and resources group I think some of their thoughts
included while it would take some massaging of the collective data, but
there’s some things on input that are just so hard to know that are dictated by
the users use the building and this could be operating schedules, plug loads
especially. So I think they were trying to get better data to help fill in those
blanks where...
Amir Roth: Right.
Ellen Franconi: ...most people just take the best guess.
Amir Roth: Right.
Ellen Franconi: And from Keith, what engine will the building component library be for?
Amir Roth: Initially it’ll be for Energy Plus, but the plan is to as we get, you know, sort of
more and more, you know, engines talking to each other you will be able to,
you know, people will be able to contribute component models for any engine
and have them up there and when you pull a component down you’ll be able
to select or search by which engine it’s for. So that’s the goal. You know,
getting the actual models in there, you know, obviously is a big challenge.
Ellen Franconi: And this component library is it sort of where someone would have coded out
- it’d be almost like an input file text snippet of something that would
characterize like a minimally component Azray chiller or something like that?
Amir Roth: Something like that, yes. Or entire systems or, you know, you can put entire
buildings on there.
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Ron Jacobs: So (unintelligible) Amir this is Ron Jacobs. Is there any thought going into
serve any kind of a neutral model format that’s been toyed around with
Europe and some other places or just (unintelligible)...
((Crosstalk))
Amir Roth: The (specific) model for this performance map format or...
Ron Jacobs: Oh maybe I’m not (unintelligible), neutral model format.
Ellen Franconi: For the building component library?
Ron Jacobs: Yes.
Amir Roth: No we haven’t, you know, I mean I think we will look at it, you know, we
haven’t discussed this yet. You know, it’s going to be pretty flexible I think.
Hello?
Ellen Franconi: Yes. I just catching up on the (questions). There’s two more not a question,
but a note. Building energy models has a basis of large incentives in
Massachusetts. We fund many energy modeling studies to comply with the
regulated bodies in the state in order to assign incentives. We are one of the
major sources of work for local engineering firm (doing them).
Yes that’s definitely one of the drivers is in incentives. I mean through utility
programs and the like. And again I think from the market and demands group
it was just making sure that people were actually achieving the energy use and
was a big deal and not just getting credit, the intent.
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And the last one, can you explain how you expect users would use leverage to
cross reference repository buildings? (Unintelligible). Yes. I guess we covered
them. Oh okay. Yes, five minutes over.
Thank you all for hanging on. Thanks for joining. Oh and I guess the last
slide. Okay. So thank you and that is the link to the RMI page that has those
pre-summit and post-summit reports. Thanks a lot Amir for joining us. It was
very interesting.
Amir Roth: Thanks, Ellen. Thanks everybody.
END
