You can model time-varying internal gains and energy consumption of individual items of equipment in each zone by adding equipment data at the zone level on the Equipment tab. To add an item of equipment click on the Add toolbar icon, or if you are running DesignBuilder in Learning mode you can use the link in the Info panel to the right of the screen. This opens the Edit Equipment dialog:
You can define the category of internal gain (below), the number of items of equipment, the rated power per item of equipment as well as the operational schedule.
The Radiant fraction is the fraction of heat emitted by the device as long-wave radiation. The rest of the heat is considered to be convective i.e. it is modelled as heating up the zone air directly.
The Latent fraction is the fraction of the rated power which is converted to latent energy and affects the moisture balance in the zone instead of the sensible heat balance.
Fraction heat lost is the fraction of the sensible heat emitted which is lost or vented directly to outside without affecting the zone heat balance. This can be used for modelling equipment such as fluorescent lighting with control gear which can have different higher energy consumption than heat gain into the space.
A number of categories of gains are available. These are listed below together with the output data with which they are associated:
Note that all of the above gains are modelled as scheduled gains in the zone and the data is reported as such in the program output. So for example categorising an item of equipment as DHW does not affect in any way DHW modelling as defined on the HVAC tab. Likewise data for Heating, Cooling, Pumps and Fans is simply modelled as a scheduled gain in the zone, completely unconnected with HVAC modelling.