Simplified energy analysis methodology for commercial buildings.

Commercial building energy analyses may be used for new building design, energy end use forecasting and energy audit calculations. Many building simulation programs, such as DOE 2.1A or BLAST, are quite complex and must berun by specialists on main frame computers. A simplified method of commercial building energy analysis has been developed and utilises a database of previous DOE 2.1A simulations to predict the outcome of other simulations. Applies this method to an office building in one climate region and finds that it predicts heating, cooling, and total energy use very accurately. The main advantage of this method is that less specialised skill is required and only a microcomputer is needed to perform the analyses. Therefore, energy analyses can be done cheaply and quickly.