I'm interested to know if Ecotect complies with the following requirements under the Australian Building Act - ABCB Protocol for House Energy Rating
Software Version 2005.1 -
It has not been listed with the Authorities as a compliant software (which I believe is a self-assessment system) - I would love to see Ecotect being included in this official list, as the BCA no requires all new designs to tested by one of the listed software programs.
The official list currently includes: (this is for second generation software (whatever that means)
"The following software suppliers have informed
the ABCB their software meets the ABCB Protocol
for Building Energy Analysis Software Version
2006.1 -
• Beaver / ESP from ACADS-BSG;
• ES Apache from Bassett Applied Research;
• TAS from Lincoln Scott Australia Pty Ltd;
• DOE Suite including eQUEST, VisualDOE and
Energy Plus from US Department of Energy
through Team Catalyst in Australia;
• ICE from Umow Lai & Associates Pty Ltd;
• TRACE 700 from Trane; and
• Carrier E20-II from Carrier."
exert from recent advisory note from Building Standards and Regulation
Kind Regards,
Stu
ABCB Compliance
Stu,
I am not aware of Ecotect complying with this protocol.
I am sure Andrew is aware of this. I also believe it is on his list to provide BCA Energy code compliance through Ecotect in the future...
Best,
Olivier
In the past I've used
In the past I've used Ecotect a few times to calculate the heating/cooling requirements of buildings as I think that Accurate, NatHERS etc are ... not the best. I put in the set points for temperature etc that are required by the 'Protocol for House Energy rating Software V2006.1'. and get a result that I then convert to the star ratings.
However I'm always sure to let the client know that the rating does not actually comply with the Protocol and should not be used where the Protocol energy/star rating is required and that they should get a result from Accurate etc as well. In most cases, the difference is about +- 0.5 stars.
I think the main issue with Ecotect (apart from the bugs - but I think the others are far, far worse and much more limited in many other ways) is that the Protocol requires that the climate data be from the "Australian Climate Data Bank for use in the Estimation of Building Energy Use"
If Ecotect could import these climate files, then I see no reason why Ecotect would not comply with the Protocol. The only other thing would be a simple look-up table or formuli to convert the MJ/m2 into stars.
Susan