Evaluation of energy simulation software

The regulations for energy consumption are consistently getting more and morestrict. This leads to a higher customer demand for energy analysis early in the buildingdesign process. Many building planners and architects use powerful modeling softwareto visualize their projects. These digital models contain sufficient information aboutthe building’s physical characteristics for reliable energy analysis. This report evaluatesthree different energy analysis software tools and their compatibility with themodeling software Autodesk Revit Architecture. The results in the report are basedon simulations made with a fictional model in the different tools. Some of the resultsobtained from the different programs are not consistent and because of the difficultiesin evaluating these differences the usefulness is limited. Based on several criteria thesoftware have been evaluated and a recommendation for the company Tema has beenproduced. Due to the complexity of energy analysis, the software requires certainpre-knowledge of the subject by the user to perform an accurate analysis. Inconclusion, the software which is best suited for preliminary energy analysis is,according to the author, VIP-Energy because of its efficiency and credibility