BERKELEY, CA -- A new and improved version of DOE-2, a computer program for designing energy-efficient buildings, has been released by researchers at LBL -- the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. The new version, which is called DOE-2.1E, can be used to calculate the hourly energy use and energy cost of a commercial or residential building.
Like its predecessors, DOE-2.1E was developed for the U.S. Department of Energy by researchers in LBL's Energy and Environment Division. It is a public-domain program that can be used on IBM-compatible personal computers, as well as DEC mainframes and Sun workstations.
Previous features of DOE-2 have been incorporated into DOE-2.1E including daylighting simulation, automatic sizing of HVAC systems, heat recovery, thermal energy storage, and cogeneration. Among the many new capabilities are ice storage and evaporative cooling models, an enhanced energy cost calculation to simulate very complex rate structures, and a link to the WINDOW-4 computer program that simulates custom glazings.
The LBL researchers who developed DOE-2.1E were led by E&E's Fred Winklemann and included Bruce Birdsall, Fred Buhl, Kathy Ellington and Ender Erdem. Collaborating with them were Jeff Hirsch and Steve Gates of Hirsch and Associates.
For information on obtaining DOE-2.1E, contact Kathy Ellington at LBL, 1 Cyclotron Road Mailstop 90-3147, Berkeley, CA 94720.
LBL is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory located in Berkeley, California. It conducts unclassified scientific research and is managed by the University of California.