The Energy Department has released updates to its twin building energy modeling software products—EnergyPlus and OpenStudio.

EnergyPlus 8.3.0

EnergyPlus is DOE's open-source whole-building energy modeling engine. Given a description of a building's physical assets, operations, and prevailing weather conditions, EnergyPlus calculates the energy required to heat, cool, ventilate, and light the building and to meet its internal plug and process loads. DOE releases updates to EnergyPlus twice a year. Some of the new features available in EnergyPlus v8.3.0:

• Models for data center IT and HVAC equipment
• An integrated basement model that eliminates the need for the separate basement pre-processor
• A new in-zone swimming pool model
• Models for faulty (e.g., stuck or drifting) thermostats and humidistats
• 15% reduction in execution time over EnergyPlus v8.2.0

OpenStudio 1.7.0

OpenStudio is DOE's open-source software development kit for whole-building energy modeling using EnergyPlus and daylight analysis using Radiance. DOE releases quarterly updates to OpenStudio. The latest update, OpenStudio v1.7.0, includes the following new features:

• Multi-edit capability in the OpenStudio application that allows editing of multiple space and zone objects at once
• Support for the Radiance three-phase simulation of dynamic window shading control
• Import of detailed window properties from the WINDOW program

Notes about the new releases, executables for the Windows, Linux, and MAC OS X operating systems, as well as source code, are available at the GitHub release pages:

• EnergyPlus 8.3.0 GitHub page
• OpenStudio 1.7.0 GitHub page

More information about these products is available at:

• EnergyPlus website
• OpenStudio website
• DOE's Building Energy Modeling Program website