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<br>The frustrating thing for any DOE2 user who's been using the program
since it was CalERDA is that some real progress has
<br>developed over the last few years with 2.1E, 2.2, and PowerDOE.
Now it appears that the progress will be put on hold as
<br>we patiently wait several years for EnergyPlus.
<p>The timing is especially bad as more clients who are interested in "green"
design look towards building energy modeling.
<br>Some of the newer, innovated HVAC systems, as well as some popular
systems are not supported in DOE2.x, resulting in
<br>compromising the thoroughness of some modeling assignments.
<br>
<p>Mike Andelman
<br>
<p>Jeff Hirsch wrote:
<blockquote TYPE=CITE><style></style>
<font size=+0>A couple comments on
those of others ... fuel for the fire, or stir up the hornets</font> <font color="#800000"><font size=+0>Quote:
"First let me state that from all available evidence, the whole DOE (and
here DOE is the name of the program - what a strange choice for program
name, BTW) effort is one of the most successful undertakings in a brief
history of computer program development and represent well spent government
dollars by any standard."</font></font> Comment: First, all the contributors
to DOE-2 thank you for your kind words.The name was chosen, against developers
advice, by USDOE, shortly after thecreation of the Department, to replace
the programs existing name; previouslythe program was named CalERDA
for the Calif. and ERDA (one org. movedinto the new DOE) who supplied the
early funds. DOE-1, DOE-2, DOE-2.0A,DOE-2.1A, DOE-2.1B and DOE-2.1C
(1977-1986) were mostly paid for byDOE with small contributions from others.
DOE-2.1D (~1988) had smallishpercentage of private contribution.
DOE-2.1E (~1994) was about half privatecontribution (mostly my company)
and DOE-2.2 (current) is mostly privatecontribution (mostly my company).
DOE-2 would not have come into existencewithout the State and Federal government
very large investment; surprisingly largecompared to similar private projects
of the time; comparing public vs. privatecontributions must be done using
project output not $ input. DOE-X only "took off" after private firms
adopted and invested heavily: firstjust PC ports like the defunct SI, Inc
turned into Acrosoft, and ADM; then ourPC ports with many new HVAC/Economics/EndUseReporting
2.1E versions;then interfaces Comply24, VisualDOE, EZ-DOE, etc. This
ivestment only happensif firms can make $ from such efforts. Such
return on investment is not possibleunless licensing gives those investing
the time and $ the ability to benefit from theirinvestment. So, we
owe DOE and CA/CEC thanks for making it possible that DOE-x exists, butowe
the thanks to the private sector companies that took the somewhat deflatedball,
added much air (hot at times) and ran with it. <font color="#800000"><font size=+0>Quote:
"It seems to me that there is a quite a bit of confusion about PowerDOE,
which is in my opinion, very good program. PowerDOE is nothing more
than good pre and post processor, which can have DOE 2.2 or EnergyPlus
as underlying engine."</font></font> <font size=+0>Comment: Again,
the PowerDOE development team thanks you for the kind words.</font><font size=+0>PowerDOE
interface code was developed by my company with $ only from EPRI</font><font size=+0>and
our own investment (85% vs. 15%). LBNL participated, with many other</font><font size=+0>organizations,
in design meetings for the PowerDOE user interface. The PowerDOE</font><font size=+0>interface
is not just a "pre and post processor" for DOE-2; it is a full interactive</font><font size=+0>implementation
of DOE-2's BDL processor (which is somewhat of a table driven</font><font size=+0>table
generator whose internal design is only applicable to just DOE-X, but any</font><font size=+0>application
that requires extensive input organized into object tables.) Editing</font><font size=+0>PowerDOE
data screens is editing BDL memory in real time including the dynamic</font><font size=+0>recalculation
of parameter defaults (like a very large spreadsheet with a formula in</font><font size=+0>every
cell; thus the slow down - geometric- as problems get very large.) The</font><font size=+0>PowerDOE
name was suggested by LBNL as they did not like our original winDOE</font><font size=+0>name;
PowerDOE name was okayed by DOE, then accepted and trademarked by</font><font size=+0>EPRI
(oops! - an poor choice of move motivated by political infighting amoungst
the</font><font size=+0>EPRI/DOE/LBNL/JJH team). I have licensed
the use of the name and EPRI owned</font><font size=+0>interface code from
EPRI for further development and commercial distribution.</font> <font color="#800000"><font size=+0>Quote:
"<span
class=718322318-27012000><font face="Arial">EnergyPlus is an open
source program, and alpha version is just being released. For measly
$100 (I think) anybody can get license agreement and build commercial strength
pre and post-processor to it. "</font></font></font></span><span
class=718322318-27012000></span><span class=718322318-27012000><font size=+0>Comment:
EnergyPlus is NOT open source; but it should be, in my opinion, using UC's</font></span><span class=718322318-27012000><font size=+0>(LBNL
is managed by UC for DOE) own BSD (Unix) type license since it is developed</font></span><span class=718322318-27012000><font size=+0>(almost?)
entirely using public funds. Why a fee; why not freeware like our
basic DOE-2</font></span><span class=718322318-27012000><font size=+0>versions?
No published distribution licenses yet; and if these become available and
have a</font></span><span class=718322318-27012000><font size=+0>per copy
royalty, there can be no freeware products that are EnergyPlus based unless
LBNL</font></span><span class=718322318-27012000><font size=+0>does them
- in which case why would any private sector firm invest the time and $
to compete</font></span><span class=718322318-27012000><font size=+0>against
the government funds. We could adapt both the PowerDOE and eQUEST
(freeware)</font></span><span class=718322318-27012000><font size=+0>interfaces
to EnergyPlus in a straight forward manner fairly quickly; we cannot do
this without</font></span><span class=718322318-27012000><font size=+0>open
source licensing and a working, supported (commercially viable) complete
product - a</font></span><span class=718322318-27012000><font size=+0>couple
years away at best. I'm sure Eley can do the same with the VisualDOE interface
and</font></span><span class=718322318-27012000><font size=+0>EnergySoft
with EnergyPro and so on; DOE has no business funding work that so
many</font></span><span class=718322318-27012000><font size=+0>private
firms are already doing and can do better; a similar argument can be made
for</font></span><span class=718322318-27012000><font size=+0>DOE's getting
out of the engine business where the result is in "product" form rather
than</font></span><span class=718322318-27012000><font size=+0>NMF model
library or "component toolkit" form. The private sector can take
the correct</font></span><span class=718322318-27012000><font size=+0>next
commercial product steps, better, cheaper and faster (and also provide
the required</font></span><span class=718322318-27012000><font size=+0>product
marketing and support.)</font></span><span
class=718322318-27012000></span><span
class=718322318-27012000></span><font color="#800000"><font size=+0>Quote:
"Sorry for the rant, but I'm also getting tired the people who think they
can</font></font>
<br><font color="#800000"><font size=+0>purchase Power or Visual DOE and
be a DOE2 expert in a week with no prior</font></font>
<br><font color="#800000"><font size=+0>experience -- simulation, HVAC
design or otherwise."</font></font> <font size=+0>Comment: we have
many eQUEST users after quick, accurate, "first order" answers</font><font size=+0>doing
just what you say is not possible. But I agree that "specialists"
will always be needed</font><font size=+0>to perform accurate, indepth
analysis. eQUEST 2.0 will be released </font>within a couple weeks(also
freeware - and eQUEST 1.2 will be posted Friday); 2.0 will have a large
fraction ofPowerDOE-like capabilities (2D/3D displays, HVAC diagrams, full
DOE-2 details dialogsand data editing, table/graphic report pages) and
retains improved versions of the buildingcreation and EEM wizards.
We want to see thousands doing analysis not hundreds. <font color="#800000"><font size=+0>Quote:
"PowerDoe hasn't been very useful for us. Our buildings tend to be
fairly</font></font>
<br><font color="#800000"><font size=+0>large with alot of detail, so it
is easy to bring PowerDoe to a crawl on</font></font>
<br><font color="#800000"><font size=+0>both the P-pro 200 and PIII 300
machines we have."</font></font> <font size=+0>Comment: As I
mentioned above, PowerDOE is like a very large spreadsheet with thousands</font><font size=+0>of
formula; changing some items in </font>a large building model causes tens
of thousand of parametersto be recalculated; PowerDOE 1 was developed as
a 16-bit application - the memory sharingbetween the 16-bit interface code
and 32-bit interactive BDL suffers from very large windowsALIAS-style memory
sharing between processes overhead and the slowness of 32-bit numericcalculation
in a 16-bit interface environment. eQUEST is fully a 32-bit implementation
and thusis much faster; eQUEST 2.0 has full BDL details editing.
Thus, we hope to greatly reduce yourfrustrations in the near future. <font face=",ëwäö"><font color="#800000"><font size=+0>Quote:
"<span
class=590333521-26012000>One more comment and question - the DOE
is spending our money to create new code and have arguably abandoned the
multi-million dollar investment in previous DOE2.x developent. Is this
the best use of taxpayer money?"</font></font></font></span>
<p><font size=+0>Comment: There is an important role, in my view, for taxpayer
$ in this field; it is a good way</font><font size=+0>to get the basic
</font>models, algorithms, and lab/field detailed data collection and model
validationstarted (and sometimes the only source for this funding for some
types of components.) It isa terrible way to get "products" done;
DOE-2 became most successful because privatecompanies (and utilities) decided
to invest heavily in taking the basic code to the next levelso as to be
useful and useable by a wide range of "consumers" of the technology (designers,researchers,
code officials, etc.) This required heavy investment in both the
"raw" DOE-2engine (mostly work done by my company) as well as many interfaces
(GabelDoddEnergySoft's EnergyPro, Eley Associates VisualDOE, Elite's EasyDOE,
Item SystemsDOEPlus, EPRI/JJH's PowerDOE, JJH's eQUEST, DOE/PNL ComCheck-Plus,
and manyothers under development or private offering in specialized markets.) <font color="#800000"><font size=+0>Quote:
"<span class=280442019-27012000><font face="Arial">Perhaps my perceptions
of success have been unduly tainted by the seemingly endless wait for PowerDOE
and 2.2"</font></font></font></span><font size=+0>Comment: Lots could be
said here</font>, but not worth the space. In summary, others decided
toannounce the software development and schedule before the basic components
were designedand cost estimated or funds wre available to do the work.
My company advised against suchannouncements and never made any prior to
1997 first versions being available. No matter,it is all now out
there for you to use; more popwerful but probably new frustrations andeven
longer "wish lists." ---
<br>Jeff Hirsch
<br>James J. Hirsch & Associates
<br>Building Performance Analysis Software & Consulting
<br>12185 Presilla Road
<br>Camarillo, CA 93012-9243 USA
<br>phone: (805) 553-9000
<br>fax: (805) 532-2401
<br>email: <a href="mailto:Jeff.Hirsch@DOE2.com">Jeff.Hirsch@DOE2.com</a>
<br>web: <a href="http://DOE2.com">http://DOE2.com</a>
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