{"id":695,"date":"2013-11-20T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-11-20T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.autodesk.com\/inthefold\/2013\/11\/20\/autodesk-and-us-department-of-energy-team-on-open-sourcing-major-update-to-energyplus-engine\/"},"modified":"2013-11-20T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-11-20T14:00:00","slug":"autodesk-and-us-department-of-energy-team-on-open-sourcing-major-update-to-energyplus-engine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.autodesk.com\/inthefold\/autodesk-and-us-department-of-energy-team-on-open-sourcing-major-update-to-energyplus-engine\/","title":{"rendered":"Autodesk and U.S. Department of Energy Team on Open Sourcing Major Update to EnergyPlus Engine"},"content":{"rendered":"

At Greenbuild 2013, Autodesk Spotlights New Initiatives and Technologies for Sustainable Building Community<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Greenbuild\"<\/a>
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In a public handoff to the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) at Greenbuild 2013 in Philadelphia today, Autodesk is donating completely re-written EnergyPlus engine source-code, to be made available under the DoE\u2019s open source license.  <\/p>\n

As a long-time contributor to the sustainable building design community and proponent of the democratization of building performance analysis tools, this initiative is just one of several Autodesk is spotlighting at the annual conference.  The company is also unveiling new Building Performance Analysis (BPA) Certificate and Credits programs. In the LEED realm, a Revit plug-in for reducing LEED daylighting analyses from weeks to hours is being released on Autodesk Labs<\/a>.  In addition, Autodesk parted the curtains on two emerging technologies offered to a few select pilot customers — a LEED Automation tool and a Revit Credit Manager for LEED\u00ae. Finally, Autodesk also announced an expanded Energy Analysis capability, which is now available for Revit 2014 through Autodesk Subscription.<\/p>\n

 Updating EnergyPlus<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Department of Energy\u2019s EnergyPlus software is a crucial energy analysis engine for the sustainable building community.  However, EnergyPlus has not achieved maximum adoption by either design practitioners or design and analysis software vendors like Autodesk.<\/p>\n

\"E\"<\/a><\/p>\n

One aspect of the problem has been the EnergyPlus code itself\u2014not the calculations, but the language they are written in. As a physics engine, EnergyPlus was initially written in FORTRAN, a language aimed at scientific programs to be run by a select few for days and weeks on supercomputers. But nowadays, EnergyPlus needs to be run by many more architects, engineers, and energy consultants on multi-core, graphics-enabled desktops and in the cloud. It also needs to work with modern Building Information Modeling (BIM) design applications, auditing tools, and energy dashboards.<\/p>\n

To address this limitation, Autodesk took the initiative to translate EnergyPlus\u2014more than 600,000 lines of code\u2014to C++, a modern object-oriented language that is better supported on mass-market hardware and software platforms. Autodesk is donating this new version of EnergyPlus to DoE under the terms of EnergyPlus\u2019 current open-source license. Autodesk will also continue to work with DoE on improving the common EnergyPlus codebase, focusing on improving its speed and BIM support.<\/p>\n

In 2011, Autodesk donated source code modifications that increased EnergyPlus\u2019 execution speed, as reported here<\/a> by the DoE.<\/p>\n

New BPA Professional Certificate and Credits<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Autodesk Building Performance Analysis (BPA) Certificate program, launched in August<\/a> for students and educators worldwide, is now open to professionals seeking continuing education credit. The expansion of the program to professionals aims to remove barriers to learning the skills necessary for an industry-wide transition to performance-based sustainable design. The free, self-paced online course teaches building science fundamentals and Autodesk building performance analysis software tools, including Revit, Vasari, and Green Building Studio.<\/p>\n

New today are Autodesk BPA Credits, which are a spin off of the certificate program, specifically for the continuing education of professionals. Three free, online self-paced courses are now open and professionals are eligible to sign up to earn USGBC and AIA credits.  The pilot courses cover: Energy Literacy & Building Loads; Whole Building Energy Analysis; and Daylight Analysis.<\/p>\n

\"BPA\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Previews of New LEED Tools<\/strong><\/p>\n

Also at Greenbuild, Autodesk signaled its support for professionals working on LEED projects with early access and previews to new technology solutions:<\/p>\n