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Buildings evolve from early design to construction and through operation.
Depending on the type of energy analysis needed at the time, stakeholders often find themselves jumping from one tool to the next. Managing multiple simulation tools can result in inconsistencies and hardships along the way, such as differing energy results, varied levels of required expertise, and multiple administrative costs.
NEO® Net Energy Optimizer overcomes these challenges – streamlining energy analysis with a single, powerful, easy-to-use tool that supports the design, construction, and operation of a building. Whether it’s setting an early energy goal, informing those goals throughout design, maintaining goals during construction, or realizing and maximizing those goals during operation – versatility empowers the user every step of the way.
Streamlining Energy Analysis
Early Design
Early in design, users can leverage NEO’s industry standard default input assumptions to perform a quick and accurate comparison of up to three HVAC options. Narrowing down the mechanical system:
- Saves on design time and costs for both mechanical engineers and architects.
- Sets the project on the right course to meet its energy goals.
- Facilitates a measured sense of direction for capital and operational costs.
Designers rarely have the luxury of spending days or weeks at the beginning of design to set up an in-depth energy model. With NEO, you only need a building type, location, and HVAC system type to create a custom whole building model in seconds.
Using those basic inputs, NEO derives a typical mix of occupancies and hours of operation, coupled with industry standard inputs from ASHRAE, AIA, COMNET, and data from more than 3,000 buildings verified through utility-sponsored commercial new construction programs.
Design
With NEO, your model evolves as your design develops. Moving beyond the basic inputs, you can customize the model to explore trade-offs between cost and energy savings for lighting design and controls, HVAC efficiency, and envelope to determine the optimal combination to meet your energy and budget requirements.
For example, a user can refine the mix of uses in the building, the operating assumptions, geometry, and the addition or removal of energy efficiency strategies.
At any point in design, you have the power see how adding or removing efficiency strategies or entire systems affects the estimated capital cost, energy consumption, and utility costs of your building. The entire analysis is done with DOE-2, an hourly energy simulation validated by ASHRAE standard 140, ensuring consistency, predictability, and confidence in results as you progress through design.
Construction and Operation
During Construction Documents and throughout construction, NEO can analyze how proposed changes could affect the design. When project cuts are needed, a quick and specific analysis of the costs and benefits of each strategy allows you to make informed decisions to stay on budget and minimize any compromise to the building’s overall energy performance.
Once the building is constructed, NEO can analyze the ongoing operation. Whether you’re performing an audit, looking to remodel an existing building, or confirm early energy goals – users can input operational conditions and actual utility bill information to gain insight into the performance of a building. With measures specifically designed to target the custom operational conditions, the tool will continue to adapt and maintain its value throughout a projects life cycle.
NEO also makes it easy to communicate results. With a web-based user interface and standard MS Word and Excel reports, you can quickly produce shareable documents. For those who desire more granular detail and understanding, there is an executable DOE-2 input file and results file available for every model.
