<div dir="ltr"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"></span><div><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">Patrick,<br><br></span></div><div><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">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.<br><br></span></div><div><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">Aaron<br></span></div><div><span style="color:rgb(54,96,146)"><br></span><br>---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: "Lapierre, Patrick" <<a href="mailto:plapierre@bpa.ca" target="_blank">plapierre@bpa.ca</a>><br>To: Nicholas
Caton <<a href="mailto:ncaton@catonenergy.com" target="_blank">ncaton@catonenergy.com</a>>,
"<a href="mailto:equest-users@lists.onebuilding.org" target="_blank">equest-users@lists.onebuilding.org</a>"
<<a href="mailto:equest-users@lists.onebuilding.org" target="_blank">equest-users@lists.onebuilding.org</a>><br>Cc: "Sloat, Cara" <<a href="mailto:Cara.Sloat@wspgroup.com" target="_blank">Cara.Sloat@wspgroup.com</a>><br>Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2015 13:35:03 +0000<br>Subject: Re: [Equest-users] Team eQUEST: Lowdown Showdown Report<br>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:rgb(54,96,146)">Congratulations on the award and a very impressive work!
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:rgb(54,96,146)"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:rgb(54,96,146)">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.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:rgb(54,96,146)"> </span></p>
<span style="color:rgb(54,96,146)">Thanks for sharing the results of your experience, it sure looked like one amazing project.</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">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!
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">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:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Symbol" lang="EN-US"><span>·<span style="font:7pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><span lang="EN-US">Aaron Powers</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Symbol" lang="EN-US"><span>·<span style="font:7pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><span lang="EN-US">Cara Sloat </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Symbol" lang="EN-US"><span>·<span style="font:7pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><span lang="EN-US">Pasha Korber-Gonzales</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Symbol" lang="EN-US"><span>·<span style="font:7pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><span lang="EN-US">Chris Jones</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Symbol" lang="EN-US"><span>·<span style="font:7pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><span lang="EN-US">Nick Caton</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">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.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">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/<a href="http://join.me" target="_blank">join.me</a>) 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! </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">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! </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">If anybody would like to learn more or ask questions, please freely reply to this email thread!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Kind regards,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">~Nick</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:14pt;color:rgb(0,32,96)" lang="EN-US">NICK CATON, P.E.</span></b><span style="font-family:"Verdana",sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125)" lang="EN-US"><br>
</span><b><span style="color:rgb(86,23,130)" lang="EN-US">Owner</span></b><span lang="EN-US"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color:rgb(86,23,130)" lang="EN-US"> </span></b><span lang="EN-US"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:10pt;color:rgb(86,23,130)" lang="EN-US">Caton Energy Consulting</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black" lang="EN-US"><br>
</span><span style="font-size:10pt;color:rgb(31,73,125)" lang="EN-US"> 306 N Ferrel</span><span lang="EN-US"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:rgb(31,73,125)" lang="EN-US"> Olathe, KS 66061</span><span lang="EN-US"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:rgb(31,73,125)" lang="EN-US"> office: <a href="tel:785.410.3317" value="+17854103317" target="_blank">785.410.3317</a></span><span lang="EN-US"></span></p>
<span style="font-size:10pt;color:rgb(86,23,130)" lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.catonenergy.com" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(86,23,130)">www.catonenergy.com</span></a></span></div></div>