ENERGY STAR Homes has announced version 2.5 of their program will go in effect April 1, 2011 and version 3 will go in effect January 1, 2012. The version 3 process, and version 2.5 in most locations, requires that each home have a unique ENERGY STAR HERS Index Target calculated. This target requires the creation of an ENERGY STAR Reference Design Home and a size adjustment factor. EnergyGauge automates the multiple step process and handles all of the logic required to determine if an entered home passes versions 2.5 and 3.

To make an energy rater’s job even easier, we have taken the ENERGY STAR Version 3 Program one step further by not only incorporating newly required checklists for quality control, but also performing the logic associated with ensuring checklist input conforms to the program requirements for v2.5 and v3.0. The rater also has the ability to print the blank checklists from the software.

In addition, this release supports a new system designed to simplify the registration process for raters and create secure downloadable PDF documents.  The process of creating and uploading the PDF documents to the HERS Registration Web site is performed automatically at the time the provider performs the registration.  Reports will include a digital signature embedded into the PDF document at the time of creation to ensure security and authenticity.

To learn more about EnergyGauge go to www.EnergyGauge.com

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This series of courses will demonstrate:

• How to design and maintain a green building that has good indoor air quality
• How to make a building durable, comfortable and energy efficient
• How to protect buildings from mold
• What types of air-conditioning systems will cause mold problems
• What advanced dehumidification technologies are available for use in buildings.

“A recent study finds about 25 percent of the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)-certified green buildings use more energy than expected and about 12 percent use more energy than allowed by the building code. Our courses will provide the knowledge to address these issues,” said Rob Vieira, director of buildings research at FSEC.

The courses will focus on problems in commercial buildings, although the principles discussed will be applicable to all buildings. The FSEC buildings researchers will discuss such areas as ventilation requirements, humidity control, building envelope design, pressure imbalances, HVAC systems, window selection, vapor barriers and related issues.

Students who attend all five courses in the series and pass the exam in Courses one, two and three will earn an FSEC Green Commercial Building Design and Maintenance Certificate.

The courses and schedules are:

Course 1: “Designing Building Envelopes to Control Air and Moisture in High Performance Green Buildings,” Feb. 4

Course 2: “Designing and Maintaining Building Air Flows in High Performance Green Buildings,” Feb. 5

Course 3: “Designing and Maintaining HVAC Systems for High Performance Green Buildings,” Feb. 18

Course 4: “Design Charrette — Practice Design of a High Performance Green Building,” Feb. 19

Course 5: “Commercial Energy Code and Green Building Modeling Using EnergyGauge Summit,” Feb. 26

The cost of each course is $269. For more information about the courses or to register, visit: www.floridaenergycenter.org/go/courseschedule.

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The Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC), a research institute of the University of Central Florida, today released EnergyGauge Summit Premier 3.15. FSEC will be exhibiting the software at the Greenbuild conference in Boston Nov. 19 – 21. This state-of-the-art software provides construction-industry professionals with the opportunity to substantially reduce the time required to complete energy modeling for the commercial construction LEED® rating system. It also offers a time-saving automatic federal tax deduction qualification feature.

Summit Premier was first released in November 2007 at Greenbuild Chicago.   The new version contains several improvements that make it more functional in its use for LEED and other calculations. They include:

• The required treatment of District Thermal Energy in LEED NC 2.2.  EnergyGauge Summit allows users to perform the steps required to incorporate district heating and cooling in their proposed building, as per requirements from USGBC.  EnergyGauge automatically models the typically time-consuming two-step calculation process required by the USGBC. Both step 1 and step 2 reports have been automated for saving additional time.

• Profiles and schedules are now editable. The user can modify, or create and assign, space and zone load profiles, and schedules for people, lighting equipment, etc. This will allow modeled building loads to be closer to actual load scenarios.

• TMY3 Weather data now available. The new TMY3 weather data set for numerous locations has been implemented. TMY3 represents a more recent weather data set and is understood to be a more accurate representation of current weather parameters than the old TMY2 weather data set. The user can select either dataset for analysis.

• Several new inputs now available to user. The user can now specify several new inputs, such as outdoor air quantities, thermostat type and range, number of people and/or area per person, and equipment loads. These inputs allow more accurate analysis of the building.

• New reports. EnergyGauge now has additional reports to help modelers understand those periods where the loads are not met by the HVAC system (unmet hours). Profiles and schedule reports have also been added. Additionally, the software includes a printable replica of the LEED online-report.

This easy-to-use new software product is an advancement of a product that is used in Florida for commercial building code compliance by more than 1,500 users.  The Premier edition includes nationwide climates and offers the automatic federal tax deduction qualification and LEED® energy optimization features.

The United States Green Building Council’s (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) system is the leading green building rating system in the United States. The organization recently mandated that each project achieve at least two energy optimization points in their rating. EnergyGauge Summit Premier allows engineers to simply enter the design building characteristics and the software calculates everything else for these important point credits.

At Greenbuild’s expo booth 2450, FSEC will demonstrate the ability to complete and submit the LEED 2.2 EA Credit 1 template to the LEED-Online database.  This automatic baseline building-generation and template-completion feature will save the typical energy modeler many hours on each building submission.

The software automatically creates the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) standard 2004 90.1 baseline building; performs the ASHRAE 2004 Appendix G rating procedure, and calculates the points achieved for LEED energy optimization. It also calculates ASHRAE Standard 90.1 compliance, based on the performance method, as called for in ASHRAE performance-based energy code compliance methodology.

In addition, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has listed EnergyGauge Summit Premier as qualified software for calculating energy savings for the energy-efficient, commercial-building tax deduction under Internal Revenue Code §179D.

EnergyGauge Summit Premier performs an annual 8,760-hour simulation, taking just a few seconds on typical new computers. The Windows-based program uses a DOE2 engine, originally developed by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory with support from the U.S. Department of Energy.

A free, fully-functional trial version of the new EnergyGauge Summit Premier software can be downloaded at www.EnergyGauge.com. The software retails for $949 per annual license.

About EnergyGauge®
EnergyGauge energy analysis software is produced and distributed by the Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC), a research institute of the University of Central Florida.  EnergyGauge is a registered trademark of FSEC.  FSEC has been conducting research on energy efficiency in buildings since 1980.  EnergyGauge software products include EnergyGauge Summit for commercial buildings, EnergyGauge USA for residential buildings nationwide and EnergyGauge FlaRes for Florida’s residential code compliance.  EnergyGauge is on display at the Greenbuild conference at booth 2450. More information at www.EnergyGauge.com.

About FSEC
The Florida Solar Energy Center, a research institute of the University of Central Florida, is the largest and most active state-supported energy research institute in the nation. Current divisions and their research activities include Advanced Energy Research: alternative transportation systems, hydrogen fuel and fuel cells; Buildings Research: energy-efficient buildings; and Solar Energy: solar water and pool heating and solar electric and distributed generation systems. For more information about the center, visit www.floridaenergycenter.org or call the FSEC Public Affairs Office at 321-638-1015.

About ASHRAE
ASHRAE creates standards used internationally for building energy and ventilation performance such as ASHRAE 90.1 for commercial building energy performance. More information is available at www.ashrae.org.

About LEED®
LEED is a registered trademark of the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) and represents The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System, the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction, and operation of high performance green buildings. One of the key elements for earning points in the popular LEED rating system is the buildings energy performance. For new buildings, the applicant can earn one LEED credit point for each 3.5 percent improvement in performance relative to ASHRAE/IESNA Standard 90.1-2004 using the Building Performance Rating Method in Appendix G of the Standard. More information on LEED is available at www.usgbc.org/.

About Greenbuild
Greenbuild is the world’s largest conference and expo dedicated to green building. Scheduled for November 19 – 21, 2009, more than 20,000 building professionals from around the world gather for three days of outstanding educational sessions, renowned speakers, green building tours, special seminars, networking events.

About the Energy Tax Deduction
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct 2005) is the first effort of the United States government to address U.S. energy policy since the Energy Policy Act of 1992. Among many other things, the 1,724-page law provides new tax incentives for a number of solar and energy efficiency measures including tax deductions for commercial buildings. This provision offers business taxpayers a deduction of $1.80 per square foot for commercial buildings that achieve a 50 percent reduction in annual energy cost to the user, compared to a reference building defined by the industry standard ASHRAE/IESNA 90.1-2001. Energy costs refer only to heating, cooling, lighting and water heating, since only these uses are within the scope of the ASHRAE standard and within the control of the building designer. More information on the IRS procedure can be found at: www.irs.gov/irb/2006-26_IRB/ar11.html.

Each of the three energy-using systems of the building: the envelope, the heating, cooling and water heating system, and lighting system, is eligible for one third of the incentive if it meets its share of the whole-building savings goal. Explicit interim compliance procedures are provided for lighting.

New construction in an existing building is also eligible for the tax deduction, with one-third of the deduction amount for new construction that affects the new energy-using system (such as lighting or heating, cooling and water heating).

Compliance is determined by third-party inspectors who review the plans and the actual in-place construction. Energy savings are determined by software that must be certified by the Department of Energy as meeting criteria of consistency and accuracy. EnergyGauge Summit is listed as qualified software by the U.S. Department of Energy, visit: www1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/qualified_software.html

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EnergyGauge Summit Premier offers automatic ASHRAE 2001 and ASHRAE 2004 reference building creation including the Building Performance Rating Method in Appendix G of the 2004 Standard. Unlike other software that requires the user to create multiple building decks and make many changes to create a reference building according to code or IRS rules, EnergyGauge Summit allows users to simply enter basic information on the building they are evaluating. The software then automatically creates a reference building, performs the necessary simulations and analysis and provides a report indicating qualification for the U.S. Energy Policy Act tax deductions for whole building energy savings. The program will also determine if the building meets the IRS standard for partial envelope, equipment or lighting savings for those projects not seeking to meet the whole building performance level.

EnergyGauge Summit Premier is an advancement of a product that is used in Florida for commercial building code compliance by more than 1,500 users. The new software includes nationwide climates and offers new automatic tax deduction features. The Windows-based program uses a DOE2 engine (originally developed by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory with U.S. Department of Energy support) to perform an annual 8760-hour simulation (taking just a few seconds on typical new computers).

A free trial version of the new EnergyGauge Summit Premier software can be downloaded at www.EnergyGauge.com. It retails at $949 per license.

EnergyGauge
EnergyGauge energy analysis software is produced and distributed by The Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC), a research institute of the University of Central Florida. EnergyGauge is a registered trademark of FSEC. FSEC has been conducting research on energy efficiency in buildings since 1980. The center’s mission is to research and develop energy technologies that enhance Florida’s and the nation’s economy and environment and to educate the public, students and practitioners on the results of the research. More information on FSEC is available at http://www.fsec.ucf.edu/en/.

AHR Expo and ASHRAE
The AHR Expo is the International Air Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Exposition, held in conjunction with the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineer’s (ASHRAE) winter meeting. ASHRAE creates standards used internationally for building energy and ventilation performance such as ASHRAE 90.1 for commercial building energy performance. More information is available at http://www.ahrexpo.com/ and at http://www.ashrae.org/.

LEED
LEED is a registered trademark of the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) and represents The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System, the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction, and operation of high performance green buildings. One of the key elements for earning points in the popular LEED rating system is the building’s energy performance. For new buildings, the applicant can earn one LEED credit point for each 3.5% improvement in performance relative to ASHRAE/IESNA Standard 90.1-2004 using the Building Performance Rating Method in Appendix G of the Standard. More information on LEED is available at http://www.usgbc.org/.

Energy Tax Deduction
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct 2005) is the first effort of the United States government to address U.S. energy policy since the Energy Policy Act of 1992. Among many other things, the 1,724-page law provides new tax incentives for a number of solar and energy efficiency measures including tax deductions for commercial buildings. This provision offers business taxpayers a deduction of $1.80 per square foot for commercial buildings that achieve a 50% reduction in annual energy cost to the user, compared to a reference building defined by the industry standard ASHRAE/IESNA 90.1-2001. Energy costs refer only to heating, cooling, lighting and water heating, since only these uses are within the scope of the ASHRAE standard and within the control of the building designer.

Each of the three energy-using systems of the building — the envelope, the heating, cooling and water heating system, and lighting system — is eligible for one third of the incentive if it meets its share of the whole-building savings goal. Explicit interim compliance procedures are provided for lighting.

New construction in an existing building is also eligible for the tax deduction, with one-third of the deduction amount for new construction that affects the new energy-using system (such as lighting or heating, cooling and water heating).

Compliance is determined by third-party inspectors who review the plans and the actual in-place construction. Energy savings are determined by software that must be certified by the Department of Energy as meeting criteria of consistency and accuracy. EnergyGauge Summit has been submitted to the U.S. Department of Energy for listing as compliant software. More information on the IRS procedure can be found at http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-06-52.pdf.

The Florida Solar Energy Center, a research institute of the University of Central Florida, is the largest and most active state-supported energy research center in the country. Current research activities include solar water and pool heating, solar electric and distributed generation systems, energy-efficient buildings, alternative transportation systems, hydrogen fuel, fuel cells and other energy areas. For more information about the center, visit www.fsec.ucf.edu or call the FSEC Public Affairs Office at (321) 638-1015.

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That’s because FSEC’s widely acclaimed new software that allows homebuilders around the country to easily and accurately take advantage of the new $2,000 federal tax credits for energy-efficient homes has been selected the first – and so far, the only – software listed in the National Registry of accredited Tax Credit Compliance Software. The listing, maintained by the Residential Energy Services Network (RESNET), provides information to builders, energy raters, mortgage brokers, tax analysts and others on RESNET accredited software programs for the new tax rules. It is online at http://www.resnet.us/programs/taxcredit_software/directory.htm .

“This is really a terrific honor,” said FSEC’s deputy director Philip Fairey, who led the team that developed the software. “The new federal tax credits that went into effect this past January provide significant financial incentives for new homes that are energy efficient. The problem is that eligible homes must demonstrate savings by the use of software approved by the IRS in accordance with RESNET guidelines, and there weren’t any usable programs until we developed ours.”

FSEC has operated the EnergyGauge program in Florida since the mid-1990s to help builders rate and certify homes that met state standards. Fairey and others at FSEC built upon that software to develop a program for national use that uses the 2006 HERS (Home Energy Rating System) Reference Home standards and the 2006 NAECA (National Appliance Energy Conservation Act) minimum hot water, air conditioner and heat pump standards to perform the tax credit calculations based on home heating and air-conditioning use.

The FSEC program is allowing homebuilders around the country to take advantage of the tax incentives and increase the energy efficiency of their homes. Complete information on the software is available at www.energygauge.com.

The Florida Solar Energy Center, a research institute of the University of Central Florida, is the largest and most active state-supported energy research center in the country. Current research activities include solar water and pool heating, solar electric and distributed generation systems, energy-efficient buildings, alternative transportation systems, hydrogen fuel, fuel cells and other energy areas. For more information about the center, visit www.fsec.ucf.edu or call the FSEC Public Affairs Office at (321) 638-1015.

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