Modeling office buildings with DOE-2

DOE-2 is arguably the most complex and comprehensive building energy simulation program available. However, not even DOE-2 addresses ali situations encountered in commercial office buildings. Most buildings contain one or more of the following situations: 

•  Heated and cooled by systems not available in simulation program. 
• Number of HVAC systems and/or zones exceeds limits of simulation program. a Multiple chillers of different size and efficiencies. DOE-2 allows multiple chillers, but does not allow assignment of chillers to specific systems. 
•  New and irmovatíve HVAC control systems. Automatic room temperature and lighting controls found in new control system specifications exceed the limits of DOE-2 and require additional modeling assumptions. 

This paper is an examination of these typically encountered problems and how they were addressed thru modeling studies performed over the last three years. Case studies are used to emphasize the problems. Modeling approaches used are presented and explained. 

Note that most of these problems will be solved by the PowerDOE vcrsion of DOE-2, scheduled to be released in late 1995 (reference 1).