IES and LEED Energy Modeling

For a couple years now many IES has placed much of there development efforts towards compliance with the Performance Rating Method of ASHRAE 90.1 (LEED Energy Modeling). What we saw during this time, however, was mostly a new look and more of those buttons. The most frustrating part was that IES had LEED written all over their product, being able to demonstrate compliance on a large number of credits.

Wait a minute. The single largest point getting credit in the LEED Rating system, not to mention the largest consulting fees for any one credit (over 100K depending on the project), is EA1 Optimize Energy Performance, and the use of an ASHRAE compliant energy model can get you the most points. Energy Modeling, that's the business. And what is IES? It's an Energy Modeling software. Wait, what?

Now, several years later, they've done it. Finally, thank you!

Why did we like IES in the first place? Because it's a visual, multi-purpose engineering and analysis tool that inter-operates with BIM. So how then do you take a BIM model into IES for LEED energy modeling?

Everything has changed, and you'll have to wait until my next post to hear about it. ;)