Plant Application Guide — EnergyPlus 8.3

<< Prev | Table of Contents | Next >>

Example System 1: Chiller and Condenser Loops[LINK]

A simple cooling system will be used as an example to demonstrate the process of inputting a system into the input file. The input file for this example can be found under the name: PlantApplicationsGuide_Example1.idf.

This particular system consists of two unique sub-systems/loops. It contains the PlantLoop with the chiller and the load profile, and another PlantLoop with the cooling tower. A schedule containing previously obtained simulation loads is used to simulate the demand load profile for this loop (Note: In a more general scenario a cooling coil placed in a building zone would provide the load profile). Flow diagrams along with some keywords from the input file will be used to record to steps that are required to properly input the system into EnergyPlus. The simple line diagram for this system is provided in #ref/fig simple-cooling-system-line-diagram. The complete EnergyPlus schematic for the system is provided in #ref/fig energyplus-line-diagram-for-the-simple-cooling-system.

Simple cooling system line diagram

Simple cooling system line diagram

EnergyPlus line diagram for the simple cooling system

EnergyPlus line diagram for the simple cooling system

The cooling system consists of a chilled water loop which is defined by the PlantLoop object, and a condenser loop which is also defined by the PlantLoop object. Identification of these loops in the system is critical for the process of modeling the system in the input file the flowchart for loop identification is provided in #ref/fig flowchart-for-loop-identification.

Flowchart for loop identification

Flowchart for loop identification