Getting Started with EnergyPlus[LINK]

The remainder of this document is intended to give you a start on using the program with a few simple tools (EP-Launch to help run the simulation; IDFEditor to help create or look at input files) as well as some of the features (such as energy meters, simulation results) of using the program.

For learning about a specific input file, or a specific input object, the install includes two documents in the ExampleFiles folder:

• Example Files Summary (highlights of each example file)
• Example Files Links to Objects (for any object, up to 3 files using that object are shown)

The Example File Generator will take your descriptive details about a building (or you could use an EnergyPlus input file), run the simulation at the location you pick and send the results along with an input file to your email address.

The standard Windows install procedure has put the following information on your computer, in the directories/folders shown.

The main EnergyPlus folder contains:

• Energy+.idd
• EnergyPlus.exe and dependent shared libraries (dll files)
• RunEPlus.bat and other batch files for running EnergyPlus
• readme file(s), license, etc.
• EP-Macro.exe and other support binaries
• bugreprt.txt

The general layout of folders from the install looks like:

. EnergyPlus main folder
+-- Documentation
|   +-- A link to find the documentation online, and any additional docs packaged with the installation
+-- DataSets
|   +-- Reference Data Sets (libraries)
+-- MacroDataSets
|   +-- Macroized Reference Data Sets (libraries)
+-- PreProcess
|   +-- FMUParser              Tool for external interface specific applications
|   +-- IDFEditor              Program files for the IDFEditor
|   +-- GrndTempCalc           Special program to calculate ground temperatures.
|   +-- DOE2Translator         Simple translator for DOE-2 files
|   +-- WeatherConverter       Tool for performing weather file creation and conversion
|   +-- ParametricPreprocessor Parametric simulation tool
|   +-- IDFVersionUpdater      Graphical tool for updating old EnergyPlus files to the latest version
+-- PostProcess
|   +-- ReadVarsEso            The simple post processor exe.
|   +-- EPCompare              A graphical tool for comparing two EnergyPlus output sets
+-- ExampleFiles               Sample input, output, results files shipped with the program.
+-- WeatherData                Sample weather files shipped with the program.