[Equest-users] Team eQUEST: Lowdown Showdown Report

Wed Nov 11 20:38:57 PST 2015

My experiences with doing large numbers of DOE-2 parametrics are 
similar.  As an old geezer, I have always (and continue to) run DOE-2 
using batch scripts. When I got a quad-core desktop computer 5 years 
ago, I would simply open up 4 command prompt windows and then dump a 
batch of DOE-2 runs in each.  For the simple residential model I was 
using, a single DOE-2 run, including postprocessing using awk scripts, 
would take less than a second, so I could get 5-6 runs done every 
second.  That allowed me to build a data base of 400,000 runs for window 
films, that being the project goal, in a little over 24 hours.

Joe

Joe Huang 	
White Box Technologies, Inc.
346 Rheem Blvd., Suite 205A
Moraga CA 94556
yjhuang at whiteboxtechnologies.com
http://weather.whiteboxtechnologies.com for simulation-ready weather data
http://www.whiteboxtechnologies.com
(o) (925)388-0265
(c) (510)928-2683
"building energy simulations at your fingertips"

On 11/11/2015 4:01 PM, Aaron Powers wrote:
> Patrick,
>
> We did run these directly in the DOE2 engine without the eQuest 
> interface.  There are several good existing tools for running many 
> simulations including the parametric runs feature in eQuest, but we 
> went a different route with a custom developed tool so that we could 
> run our algorithms and not eat up hard drive space. Each simulation, 
> including writing the inp and reading the results, was running in 
> about 3 seconds.  We could get up to 4 DOE2 simulations to run in 
> parallel simultaneously, so each process could produce 15000 
> simulations in about 12.5 hours.  This gave us 4x15000 = 60000 
> simulations overnight.
>
> Aaron
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: "Lapierre, Patrick" <plapierre at bpa.ca <mailto:plapierre at bpa.ca>>
> To: Nicholas Caton <ncaton at catonenergy.com 
> <mailto:ncaton at catonenergy.com>>, "equest-users at lists.onebuilding.org 
> <mailto:equest-users at lists.onebuilding.org>" 
> <equest-users at lists.onebuilding.org 
> <mailto:equest-users at lists.onebuilding.org>>
> Cc: "Sloat, Cara" <Cara.Sloat at wspgroup.com 
> <mailto:Cara.Sloat at wspgroup.com>>
> Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2015 13:35:03 +0000
> Subject: Re: [Equest-users] Team eQUEST: Lowdown Showdown Report
>
> Congratulations on the award and a very impressive work!
>
> I’m amazed by the results of your mutli-variable optimization 
> algorithms. I wouldn’t have thought that doing so would improve the 
> optimization effort by 20%, in comparison to a standard optimization 
> process. I’m also intrigued in how you could achieve 60 000 runs 
> overnight on a single PC. Did you use parametric runs in eQUEST or you 
> worked directly via DOE-2? I’m not quite familiar with programing 
> parametric runs or the like directly in DOE-2 so I’m not sure how you 
> di dit but would sure like to know how.
>
> Thanks for sharing the results of your experience, it sure looked like 
> one amazing project.
>
>
> This year at the 2015 ASHRAE Energy Modeling Conference, there was a 
> “Lowdown Showdown” design competition.  Voluntary teams representing 
> most commercial energy simulation software packages & platforms tried 
> to tackle a relatively open design challenge to bring a building (of 
> our own design) down to net-zero energy.  The relatively small team 
> representing eQUEST/DOE-2 won an award by popular vote for the “Most 
> Creative” design solution!
>
> The eQUEST team had 5 members (all CC’ed on this email thread) - you 
> may recognize a few as frequent contributors over these mailing lists:
>
> ·Aaron Powers
>
> ·Cara Sloat
>
> ·Pasha Korber-Gonzales
>
> ·Chris Jones
>
> ·Nick Caton
>
> I served as ‘coach’ for the team, and in that context am very proud to 
> share some new information concerning our collaborative efforts, 
> design process, and the final ‘product’ with the greater eQUEST-users 
> community.  Those who were able to attend the conference experienced a 
> live presentation by representatives for the teams and a panel 
> discussion with all of the coaches to field questions/challenges from 
> the audience, but time was quite constrained.  This this is an 
> opportunity to share with those who could not attend and to 
> convey/discuss things in more detail.
>
> Attached is a ‘poster’ that covers much of the information we 
> presented for the project, and outlines the process we followed over 
> the ~9 weeks we had to collaborate.  We accomplished a great deal in 
> the time we had, in spite of a late start due to some difficulties in 
> assembling the minimum # of members required.  The team met weekly via 
> VOIP calls (Skype/join.me <http://join.me>) to coordinate efforts, 
> present individual findings, and to simply share knowledge and 
> relate/compare experiences.  As a group, each individual identified 
> and contributed challenges/problems/systems of interest early on, and 
> as a group we made it a goal to incorporate those elements into our 
> project along the way.  This ‘spirit’ to tackle new/interesting issues 
> and to avoid “easy/obvious” solutions lead to some interesting design 
> decisions along the way!
>
> I initially thought I would make it a personal goal to ensure the 
> project would be engaging, informative, and rewarding for every 
> participant, but I learned that with the right group that is going to 
> happen anyway!  My only regret is that more of my friends and 
> colleagues in the industry did not get to participate.  I sincerely 
> hope when the next opportunity comes along, more individuals from this 
> community will take the initiative to participate – it was very much 
> worth our time!
>
> If anybody would like to learn more or ask questions, please freely 
> reply to this email thread!
>
> Kind regards,
>
> ~Nick
>
> *NICK CATON, P.E.*
> *Owner*
>
> **
>
> *Caton Energy Consulting*
>   306 N Ferrel
>
> Olathe, KS  66061
>
> office: 785.410.3317 <tel:785.410.3317>
>
> www.catonenergy.com <http://www.catonenergy.com>
>
>
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