EnergyPlus is the core simulation engine used by loadmodeling.tool and performances all the heating and cooling load calculations, along with sub-hourly energy consumption. The engine performs thousands of other functions as well, all to represent a building performance. The engine uses physics based simulations of the building envelope, mechanical systems, occupants, and more to arrive at the peak and coincident load values engineers use to size mechanical systems, and the energy consumed in the building.

This April we are upgrading the version of EnergyPlus from 9.5 to 22.2 (imported to note that EnergyPlus has change their version numbering scheme to reflect year it was released). This upgrade brings a myriad and improvements, new features, and defect repairs to the engine. Highlighted here are just a few of the hundreds of updates that are incorporated into the platform! See the links at the end of this article for the full change logs.

Upgrading the simulation engine is no easy task and the team at cove.tool has work diligently to implement, and test the update reflects all the expected changes and that no unexpected changes to inputs or results have occurred. This comes in the form of a full Functional Performance Test (FPT) which is carried out ahead of releasing the upgrade for our users. The upgrade will be live in the coming weeks! Once live the version uses on the platform will be

All simulations run prior to the update will be version 9.5 of EnergyPlus. Downloading the simulation history of runs completed prior to the update will remain in version 9.5 as well. All simulations run after the update will be in version 22.2 and the exported EnergyPlus files will reflect the new version.