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Location and Climate

Many of the fields in the group of input objects related to location, climate, and the weather file are ones that will be set once for each specific project.

  • Site:Location - describes the name, latitude, longitude and other parameters related to the location of the building. When using a weather file, the values from the weather file will be used instead. Predefined location objects may be found in the DDY file that accompanies most epw weather files.
  • SizingPeriod:DesignDay - the high and low temperature and humidities describing a design day that is used for sizing equipment. Two (or more) instances of this input object are frequently in a file, one for heating and one for cooling. The DDY file that comes with the weather file should include input objects that may be used here.
  • RunPeriod - the start and stop dates of the simulation and often set to the full year. When debugging a file, a shorter period of time can be used to speed up the simulation portion of the Run-Check-Edit cycle.
  • RunPeriodControl:SpecialDays - allows specification of holidays and a good example can be seen in 5ZoneCostEst.idf.
  • RunPeriodControl:DaylightSavingTime - allows the specification of the start and ending period for daylight savings time. This will impact when schedules operate but please note that output reporting timesteps are always shown in standard time so schedules will shift an hour in the output when daylight savings time is active. A good example can be seen in 5ZoneCostEst.idf.
  • Site:GroundTemperature:BuildingSurface - for one of the ground temperature algorithms, specifies the average temperature for each month of the year. This temperature is applied directly to the outside face of surfaces which use the Ground outside boundary conditions. See Ground Heat Transfer in EnergyPlus in the Auxiliary Programs document for information about preprocessors. There are also other more integrated ground heat transfer options, see Site:GroundDomain:* and Foundation:Kiva.
  • Site:WaterMainsTemperature - input for the water temperatures supplied to the building from underground water mains and should be specified whenever water heaters are described. A good example can be seen in 5ZoneVAV-ChilledWaterStorage-Mixed.idf. If not specified, some default assumptions are used for the water temperature supplied to the building.

Other input objects in this group can help perform sizing using the weather file, override the sky temperature, impact the variation of outdoor conditions with building height (especially important for tall buildings), work with ground temperatures and ground heat transfer, override the precipitation in weather files, specify the irrigation for a green roof, and some advanced properties related to the light spectrum for window performance. These input objects and more are further explained in the InputOutputReference under the heading "Group-Location and Climate."