3

eQuest vs. CAN-Quest

I have a fairly basic question for anybody familiar with using CAN-Quest to comply with NECB 2011. When running a compliance simulation in eQuest, you have your proposed building baseline design, and the ASHRAE 90.1 reference building baseline design (rotated in 4 different directions). However, in CAN-Quest it seems as though there are three different simulation outputs: baseline design, NECB Proposed Building, and NECB Reference Building. When I simulate the energy performance (not a compliance run), the output is called the baseline design. When I perform a compliance run, I obtain the NECB proposed building and NECB reference building results. I'm under the assumption that the NECB reference building is the building that is generated to be compliant with NECB 2011. It was my understanding that the initially simulated baseline design was my proposed building, but there are large discrepancies between the energy performances of the baseline design and the NECB proposed building. My question is what is the difference between the NECB proposed building that gets generated during the compliance run and the baseline design that is created through user inputs?

13saw13's avatar
85
13saw13
asked 2017-06-21 10:46:30 -0500
Julien Marrec's avatar
29.7k
Julien Marrec
updated 2017-06-23 08:09:54 -0500
edit flag offensive 0 remove flag close merge delete

Comments

add a comment see more comments

1 Answer

4

Sam, the NECB mandates the proposed model requirements for compliance analysis. As you are discovering, these requirements override the proposed design "baseline" model inputs in a number of areas. A few examples:

  • The modeled shading coefficient is multiplied by 0.8 to account for incidental shading (dirt, etc.)
  • infiltration is set to a constant value of 0.25L/s/m2 of gross wall and roof area.
  • dwelling unit lighting power density is set at 5 W/m2.
  • part load performance curves are set to those defined by the NECB.

There are other changes made to the proposed baseline that I am not recalling at the moment.

Chris Jones's avatar
1.1k
Chris Jones
answered 2017-06-22 07:59:41 -0500
Julien Marrec's avatar
29.7k
Julien Marrec
updated 2017-06-23 08:10:30 -0500
edit flag offensive 0 remove flag delete link

Comments

@13saw13: if that solved your problem, please mark the answer as accepted, thanks!

Julien Marrec's avatar Julien Marrec (2017-06-27 02:41:26 -0500) edit

So Chris, are you saying that it forces some variables in your proposed model?

Furthermore, it seems as though CANQUEST merely computes the reference building and gives you a report. You have no say as to how it modelled the reference building, unlike Equest where you are able to tweak the reference model to better suit your understanding of 90.1

Is there anyway to work on the NECB ref model?

Thanks!

ModellingisLyfe's avatar ModellingisLyfe (2017-12-01 23:22:01 -0500) edit
add a comment see more comments