Revit Tutorials - Energy Analysis and eQuest (BPA Blog)

If you haven't checked out John and Emile's blog about Building Performance Analysis (BPA) check it out now!  

To start you off with some goodies here are two great posts about Revit, Green Building Studio, eQuest, and beyond....

Advanced Energy Analysis with Green Building Studio DOE2 and EnergyPlus support

Posted by:   David Scheer - Green Building Studio Product Owner

Who is this for:

• Engineers and energy analysts who want to do more detailed work on their analysis model than the tools in Autodesk^® Revit^®, Vasari^® or Green Building Studio^® allow.

Continue reading the post here...

Tutorial – Green Button XML file

By Peter Shi with Barry Tsai

Who is this for: Energy Analyst, Building Scientists, Energy Modeling Engineers and GBS users.

Takeaway: If you have experience in any real world building energy simulation, you would know synchronization of utility data and historical weather data is a very manual and labor extensive process. Green Button feature is designed to help user to automate and streamline this process.

Continue reading the post here...

Empire State Building... LEED Gold?! Revit?!

"New York’s famous Empire State Building is pursing LEED Gold certification with a goal of reducing annual energy consumption by an impressive 38%.

Planned improvements include an ambitious replacement of the building’s entire window system, an upgrade of heating and cooling plants and the integration of a smart lighting system. The $13.2MM project will provide an estimated annual energy savings of $4.4MM, yielding a three-year payback on investment.

The following video summarizes the project and includes interviews with the building’s owner, Anthony E. Malkin, and Scott Horst, EVP of LEED with the USGBC.

Thanks to LEEDBlogger.com for the post.

Hmmm... So I wonder what "Energy Analysis Program" they will use to submit documentation for certification...

Well after some research I found a few interesting links regarding this matter:

• Johnson Controls, Inc. Empire State Building Project Page
• "Design Tools" Page of Project Website

So It appears they are using eQuest? How interesting considering eQuest and Revit are second cousins! See this PDF to see what I mean.

The Program AGi32 is also included on that page. Below is a quote directly from the AGi32 forums:

"Right now, AGi32 is limited (according to its own "import" dialog) to importing .dwg and .dxf files (or AGi32's own proprietary .AGI files). So, it would be possible to do some movement from Revit via dwg/dxf, but not a direct import."

So if the Architect uses Revit than the lighting consultant will not have to do any modeling. Ultimately, reducing money, time, and errors, and increasing accuracy, efficiency, and happines ;).