BOSTON - (Business Wire) Integrated Environmental Solutions (IES), a provider of integrated performance analysis software for sustainable building design, today announced the creation of an innovative Climate Energy Index system for its <Virtual Environment> software. This unique new index provides designers with a simple intuitive tool to assess the character of any climate and the potential it has to affect building energy usage. A world first, this addition to the software allows designers and architects to easily analyze climate data for any location during concept design stages in a building independent manner, helping to identify the theoretical energy needed to maintain occupant comfort, and inform strategy direction. Looking at the climate, in the building independent manner, at both the local level and within a global context creates a detailed understanding of the climate, what regions share similar characteristics, where energy use needs to be focused in order to deliver occupant comfort and also provides a simple benchmark for comparing climate/weather files. It is a key element often overlooked in the sustainable building design process. In addition, including future weather data allows an understanding of climate dynamics over the life of the building to be achieved.
The IES Climate Energy Index assists in both the masterplanning and concept design stages to understand what passive and low-carbon design strategies make the most sense. It recognizes that building energy use is very climate dependent. Building simulation results can also be compared with this Index to give a simple measure of design performance against potential given the climate.
The index is a simple measure of the potential energy (kWh/yr per M3/hr) required to maintain air quality within a comfortable occupant zone, and is split into heating, cooling, humidification and dehumidification requirements. It is based on climate alone excluding any consideration of building design or occupancy. It can be applied generically for 24-hour use, or to suit the occupancy patterns of any building.
“This new Index alleviates a major ‘ease of understanding’ problem for designers and architects who are looking to achieve a fully sustainable building,” said Don McLean, founder and managing director of IES. “We are providing climate information combined with energy-usage data in a new and more informative manner, eliminating unnecessary collation and interrogation to facilitate understanding, and all within easy-to-use applications. This new Index system is a unique value-add to our existing software offerings, and one which we are already developing further.”
The Climate Energy Index system is available for IES <Virtual Environment> software users. Within free VE-Ware, the headline Climate Energy Index figures are provided. Both the VE-Toolkits and VE-Gaia outputs include the same features as VE-Ware but also include global comparisons and breakdowns of potential energy types. The Climate Energy Index compliments the Climate and Building metric tools released in the latest VE-Toolkit and VE Gaia products. These automated tools analyze the climate data for the location, or analyze the building data bringing relevant characteristics to the surface for evaluation and determining design strategies. For more information on the Climate Energy Index, visit http://www.iesve.com/Software/What-Analysis-When/Climate.
About IES
Integrated Environmental Solutions (IES) is an innovative company at the forefront of the use and development of powerful software simulation tools which help architects, engineers, facilities managers, and all those involved in the development and management of buildings design and maintain truly sustainable properties. IES was established in June 1994 and is headquartered in Glasgow, Scotland, with offices in Dublin, Republic of Ireland; Boston and San Francisco, USA and Melbourne, Australia. IES Consulting is the specialist international environmental performance consultancy division of IES, its expert team of consultants include some of the most experienced LEED, BREEAM, Green Star Accredited Professionals and Accredited Energy Assessors, in the UK. IES’ services and products aid significantly in the provision of healthier and more energy efficient built environments. For additional information, please visit www.iesve.com.
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