When creating an Objective, Additional Output or Constraint it is necessary to select a Summary output (aka KPI) to define the output involved. This topic summarises the Summary outputs available for selection.
You can find more detailed descriptions of many of these outputs on the Simulation Detailed Results page.
All comfort outputs are for the whole building using an area-weighted average of discomfort calculated for each zone. Note that the comfort-related outputs are termed "discomfort" because by convention DesignBuilder aims to minimise objectives and in the context of standardising optimisation outputs it is better to minimise discomfort than to maximise comfort.
Capital cost (Building Construction Capex) - The basic cost of the building and site construction . This is the only construction cost option available when the cost model is set to 1-Basic.
Capital cost (Building + Design Capex) - The cost of the building + site construction plus the design, overhead and contractor profit costs. This option should only be used when the cost model is set to 2-UNIFORMAT II or 3-NRM1.
Important Advice for LCC and Opex KPIs
The Operational cost (Opex) and LCC total present value KPIs both require the Detailed HVAC model option to be used as they use settings on the Economics model data tab which is only available for Detailed HVAC.
The LCC total present value values calculated in optimisation and other parametric simulations will only correspond with the value calculated directly by EnergyPlus if the basis for calculation is the same. In practice this means that the following 2 requirements must be met:
Any additional Adjustment costs on the Component cost dialog should be removed. Set all costs to zero and the Regional adjustment factor to 1.
The 1-BeginningOfYear Discounting convention on the Life cycle cost dialog must be used.
This should be the case for models created in v7.
Tip: You can carry out powerful analyses to simultaneously optimise whole life cycle cost and whole life cycle environmental impact performance using DesignBuilder's optimisation tools. Choose the LCC and LCA KPIs for this sort of analysis.
No daylight-specific KPIs are available in current versions of DesignBuilder.
Heating (Oil) - oil consumption used in heating
Heating (Solid fuel) - solid fuel consumption used in heating
Heating (Bottled Gas) - bottled gas (e.g. propane) consumption used in heating
Heating (Other fuels) - Other fuels (e.g. biofuel) consumption used in heating
Cooling (Oil) - oil consumption used in cooling
Cooling (Solid fuel) - solid fuel consumption used in cooling
Cooling (Bottled Gas) - bottled gas (e.g. propane) consumption used in cooling
Cooling (Other fuels) - other fuel (e.g. biofuel) consumption used in cooling
DHW (Oil) - oil consumption used in DHW
DHW (Solid fuel) - solid fuel consumption used in DHW
DHW (Bottled gas) - bottled gas (e.g. propane) consumption used in DHW
DHW (Other fuels) - other fuel (e.g. biofuel) consumption used in DHW
The unmet load hours KPIs described below are the same values as those reported in the EnergyPlus Summary report. The Unmet load hours are described in more detail in the ASHRAE 90.1 Appendix G PRM Reference topic and also in the DesignBuilder LEED and ASHRAE 90.1 Appendix G User Guide.
You can add your own custom script KPIs which allow you to read and, if necessary post-process, simulation results from any EnergyPlus output file or other source and write it to a specific database table using the API. You can use either CS-Script or Python scripts to do this. Note that the name you give to your Custom script KPI is important as it will be used to reference it in the script that you write.
The Custom script mechanism works as follows. For each simulation:
Note: While all simulations will call the AfterEnergySimulation hook, only parametric simulations actually read the ParamResultsTmp table created in the script.
The easiest way to understand how custom script KPIs works is to work through the Custom Script KPI tutorials which explain the steps involved:
No user-defined options are currently available.