cove.tool has integrated with OpenStudio, an open-source whole building energy modeling platform to provide users a seamless transition from early-stage to compliance energy modeling. By closing the loop between key decision-making energy modeling during concept and schematic design with compliance modeling required in later design phases, cove.tool creates an uninterrupted workflow for building energy modeling.

The OpenStudio Application is a cross-platform, open-source, user interface for whole building energy modeling. The OpenStudio Application is currently maintain by the OpenStudio Coalition - a non-profit organization who support use of OpenStudio. Originally developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the US Department of Energy, OpenStudio uses EnergyPlus as the energy modeling engine and Radiance for daylight analysis.

To install the current OpenStudio Application version, visit the public Github and select the relevant operating system to download.

Our platform provides an export of your baseline energy model including:

The exported file will be a .osm which is the native file format for the OpenStudio Application. Additional detail can be added to the OpenStudio model to generate building loads or a compliance energy model for submission to LEED or other certification authority.

For more information on running your first OpenStudio model from the platform see this article.

EnergyPlus is the US Department of Energy open-source whole-building energy modeling engine. EnergyPlus has been under continuous development since 1997 with the 22.2 version released in September 2022. The engine includes detailed building physics, flexible HVAC systems, and sub-hourly time steps for modeling of fast dynamic systems.

EnergyPlus is an industry-leading engine used by many commercial and open source applications including loadmodeling.tool. As an energy modeling engine, EnergyPlus can be thought of as the back-end of OpenStudio and is installed as a package when installing OpenStudio.

Radiance is an industry recognized, open source lighting analysis and visualization engine. Radiance allows flexibility of geometry and materials used in the analysis and is validated through real world measurements. In relation to OpenStudio, Radiance provides the daylight engine which is integrated with the hourly energy usage of a building.