CO2 in outdoor air, does EnergyPlus account for this

I am going to model a zone and report the CO2 levels. I want to make sure I include all CO2 that might be entering the space. I have a natural ventilation strategy, modeled using the Air Flow Network models in E+, and so it is important to include any CO2 that might be entering from the outdoor air.

Does anyone know if EnergyPlus includes CO2 levels when introducing outdoor air into the space?
If it doesn't normally, is there a way to include this?
And finally if it does, where does EnergyPlus get this data from?

As always many thanks to anyone who answers my queries, this is turning out to be a very useful site!

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Annie Marston

asked 2014-10-31 13:12:38 -0500

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__AmirRoth__

updated 2015-07-11 20:12:40 -0500

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Yes, all airflow into a zone is included in the zone air contaminant balance (CO2 and Generic), including outdoor air from simple infiltration, airflownetwork, and HVAC systems.

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MJWitte

answered 2014-11-20 16:39:09 -0500

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Doing a search for CO2 in the 8.1 IO Reference it looks like the user can specify the concentration with these objects:

ZoneAirContaminantBalance

ZoneContaminantSourceAndSink:CarbonDioxide

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MatthewSteen

answered 2014-10-31 13:43:36 -0500, updated 2014-11-03 09:12:57 -0500

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Also the ZoneAirContaminantBalance object has to be included in order to trigger the CO2 balance calculations. So they don't normally happen (to save computation).