General tab on Schedules Dialog.
Compact Schedules are defined using a slightly modified version of the standard EnergyPlus Schedule:Compact format documented below.
Using the Compact Schedule definition all the features of the schedule components are accessed in a single command.
See also the Compact schedules tutorial
This field is for your own use and is replaced by DesignBuilder with the name of the Schedule when generating data for EnergyPlus.
ScheduleType should generally be Fraction even for schedules to be used for temperature setpoint definition.
You can enter Any Number to enter values greater than 1 but please bear in mind:
So generally we recommend using Fraction Compact schedules for clarity.
Each Compact Schedule must contain the elements Through (date), For (days), Interpolate (optional), Until (time of day) and Value.
This field starts with 'Through:' and contains the ending date for the schedule period. You may define multiple schedule periods in this way, for example to define seasonal variations. If there are no seasonal variations then enter: Through: 31 Dec, to indicate that the data that follows applies to the whole year.
Note 1: each Compact Schedule must cover all the days for a year and it must have values for all 24 hours and all values for all day types.
Note 2: The dates in the Through fields must be provided consecutively, starting at the beginning of the year and finishing at the end of the year.
Note 3 only Month-Day combinations are allowed for this field.
This field starts with 'For: ' and contains the applicable days. Multiple choices may be combined on the line.
Choices are:
In fields after the first 'For', 'AllOtherDays' may also be used.
Note: EnergyPlus has limit of line length of about 60 characters so lines like:
For: Weekdays SummerDesignDay WinterDesignDay Weekends Holidays AllOtherDays,
should be changed to:
For: AllDays,
Schedule values are input to the simulation at the zone time step, so there is also a possibility of 'interpolation' from the entries used in this object to the value used in the simulation. This field, if used, starts with 'Interpolate:' and contains the word 'Yes' or 'No'.
This field contains the ending time for the current days and day schedule being defined. The data should represent clock time (standard) in the format HH:MM. 24 hour clock format (i.e. 1pm is 13:00). Note that 'Until: 7:00' includes all times up through 07:00 (7am). The time is followed by a comma and the value the schedule takes until the given time. See note above on usual values. Generally you should enter values between zero and 1.
Finally, the value field is the schedule value for the specified time interval.
Note: you can use 0 for Temperature type Compact Schedules to indicate that the heating/cooling system is switched off during the specified period. See Example 2 below.
SCHEDULE:COMPACT,
Office_CellOff_Light,
Fraction,
Through: 31 Dec,
For: Weekdays SummerDesignDay,
Until: 07:00, 0,
Until: 19:00, 1,
Until: 24:00, 0,
For: Weekends,
Until: 24:00, 0,
For: Holidays WinterDesignDay AllOtherDays,
Until: 24:00, 0;
This schedule is intended to be used to describe the lighting operation in an office. It indicates:
Important Note on SummerDesignDays and WinterDesignDays. A common mistake is to inadvertently include internal gains from occupancy, computer gains or lighting in heating sizing simulations. This leads to heating systems to being undersized. The general rule is to avoid including any internal gains in heating sizing simulations. This is done as shown in Example 1 above, by using a value of 0 for WinterDesignDay for any schedule to be used to control internal gains.
SCHEDULE:COMPACT,
Bedroom_Cool,
Temperature,
Through: 31 Dec,
For: Weekdays SummerDesignDay,
Until: 05:00, 0.5,
Until: 09:00, 1,
Until: 17:00, 0.5,
Until: 24:00, 1,
For: Weekends,
Until: 05:00, 0.5,
Until: 24:00, 1,
For: Holidays WinterDesignDay AllOtherDays,
Until: 24:00, 0;
This schedule is intended to be used to describe the cooling temperature setpoint and setback in a bedroom. It indicates:
IMPORTANT NOTE: even if you are using IP units for the main interface you must use SI units for compact schedule values as these are passed directly to EnergyPlus.
More on Temperature setpoint schedules.
This example is intended to highlight a point about how WinterDesignDay (and by extension SummerDesignDay) values are defined. Looking at the compact schedule data below we can see that the WinterDesignDay term has been used in the "Through: 6 Jan" section (highlighted in yellow) and so at first sight you might expect that the winter design calculation will use a value of 1 for the heating design and heating sizing calculations. However, if the Winter design day date is set to 15 Jan (as it is by default for Northern Hemisphere locations in v5 and earlier) then the winter design day schedule value will come from the "Through: 31 Jan" section, where it is covered by the AllOtherDays day type and has a value of 0. This would results in incorrect system sizing for this heating schedule.
The general point is to be aware of the dates(s) used for winter and summer design days and to ensure that the values are set as required in the schedules, ideally for all Through sections so that if the design day dates change the schedule will still be valid.
SCHEDULE:COMPACT,
Heating Sch,
Fraction,
Through: 6 Jan,
For: Weekdays,
Until: 06:00, 0,
Until: 18:00, 1,
Until: 24:00, 0,
For: Weekends,
Until: 24:00, 0,
For: WinterDesignDay,
Until: 24:00, 1,
For: AllOtherDays,
Until: 24:00, 0,
Through: 31 Jan,
For: Weekdays,
Until: 06:00, 0,
Until: 18:00, 1,
Until: 24:00, 0,
For: Weekends,
Until: 24:00, 0,
For: AllOtherDays,
Until: 24:00, 0,
... etc