Capabilities
ERI Capabilities
The following ERI Standards are supported:
ANSI/RESNET/ICC 301-2014© Standard for the Calculation and Labeling of the Energy Performance of Low-Rise Residential Buildings using an Energy Rating Index
ANSI/RESNET/ICC 301-2019 Standard for the Calculation and Labeling of the Energy Performance of Dwelling and Sleeping Units using an Energy Rating Index
The following ENERGY STAR programs/versions are supported:
Single Family, National, v3.2, v3.1, v3.0
Single Family, Pacific, v3.0
Single Family, Florida, v3.1
Single Family, Oregon and Washington, v3.2
Multifamily, National, v1.2, v1.1, v1.0
Multifamily, Oregon and Washington, v1.2
The following IECC ERI versions are supported:
2015
2018
2021
The following DOE ZERH versions are supported:
1.0
Single Family, 2.0
Multifamily, 2.0
Accuracy vs Speed
The EnergyPlus simulation engine is like a Swiss army knife. There are often multiple models available for the same building technology with varying trade-offs between accuracy and speed. This workflow standardizes the use of EnergyPlus (e.g., the choice of models appropriate for residential buildings) to provide a fast and easy to use solution.
The workflow is continuously being evaluated for ways to reduce runtime without significant impact on accuracy. A number of such enhancements have been made to date.
There are additional ways that software developers using this workflow can reduce runtime:
Run on Linux/Mac platform, which is significantly faster by taking advantage of the POSIX fork call.
Do not use the
--hourly
flag unless hourly output is required. If required, limit requests to hourly variables of interest.Run on computing environments with 1) fast CPUs, 2) sufficient memory, and 3) enough processors to allow all simulations to run in parallel.
Avoid using the
--add-component-loads
argument if heating/cooling component loads are not of interest.