Easy-to-use, state-of-the-art software offers construction-industry professionals substantial time savings while completing required energy modeling calculations for LEED® projects.
Cocoa, FL – November 7, 2007 – The Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC), a research institute of the University of Central Florida, today released EnergyGauge Summit Premier 3.13 at the Greenbuild conference in Chicago. This state-of-the-art software provides construction-industry professionals with the opportunity to substantially reduce the time required to complete energy modeling for the commercial construction LEED® rating system.
The United States Green Building Council’s (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) system is the leading green building rating system in the United States. The organization recently mandated that each project achieve at least two energy optimization points in their rating. EnergyGauge Summit Premier allows engineers to simply enter the design building characteristics and the software calculates everything else for these important point credits.
The software automatically creates the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) standard 2004 90.1 baseline building; performs the ASHRAE 2004 Appendix G rating procedure, and calculates the points achieved for LEED energy optimization.
At Greenbuild, FSEC also is demonstrating the ability to complete and submit the LEED 2.2 EA Credit 1 template to the LEED-Online database. This automatic baseline building-generation and template-completion feature will save the typical energy modeler many hours of time on each building.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has listed EnergyGauge Summit Premier as qualified software for calculating energy savings for the energy-efficient, commercial-building tax deduction under Internal Revenue Code §179D.
This easy-to-use new software product also calculates ASHRAE Standard 90.1 compliance based on the performance method as called for in IECC performance energy code compliance methodology. EnergyGauge Summit Premier is an advancement of a product that is used in Florida for commercial building code compliance by more than 1,500 users. The Premier edition includes nationwide climates and offers the automatic tax deduction and LEED® energy optimization features.
The Windows-based program uses a DOE2 engine, originally developed by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory with U.S. Department of Energy support, to perform an annual 8,760-hour simulation (taking just a few seconds on typical new computers).
A free, fully-functional trial version of the new EnergyGauge Summit Premier software can be downloaded at www.EnergyGauge.com. The software retails for $949 per annual license. The Florida Solar Energy Center is offering a discount of just $899 until November 30 as a special Greenbuild conference promotion.
About EnergyGauge®
EnergyGauge energy analysis software is produced and distributed by the FloridaSolar Energy Center (FSEC), a research institute of the University of Central Florida. EnergyGauge is a registered trademark of FSEC. FSEC has been conducting research on energy efficiency in buildings since 1980. EnergyGauge software products include EnergyGauge Summit for commercial buildings, EnergyGauge USA for residential buildings nationwide and EnergyGauge FlaRes for Florida’s residential code compliance. EnergyGauge is on display at the Greenbuild conference at booth 892. More information at EnergyGauge.com.
About FSEC
The Florida Solar Energy Center, a research institute of the University of Central Florida, is the largest and most active state-supported energy research institute in the country. Current divisions and their research activities include Advanced Energy Research: alternative transportation systems, hydrogen fuel and fuel cells; Buildings Research: energy-efficient buildings; and Solar Energy: solar water and pool heating and solar electric and distributed generation systems. For more information about the center, visit http://www.floridaenergycenter.org or call the FSEC Public Affairs Office at 321-638-1015.
About ASHRAE
ASHRAE creates standards used internationally for building energy and ventilation performance such as ASHRAE 90.1 for commercial building energy performance. More information is available at http://www.ashrae.org.
About LEED®
LEED is a registered trademark of the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) and represents The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System, the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction, and operation of high performance green buildings. One of the key elements for earning points in the popular LEED rating system is the building’s energy performance. For new buildings, the applicant can earn one LEED credit point for each 3.5% improvement in performance relative to ASHRAE/IESNA Standard 90.1-2004 using the Building Performance Rating Method in Appendix G of the Standard. More information on LEED is available at http://www.usgbc.org/.
About Greenbuild
Greenbuild is the world’s largest conference and expo dedicated to green building. Scheduled for November 6 – 9, 2007, more than 18,000 building professionals from all over the world are together for three days of outstanding educational sessions, renowned speakers, green building tours, special seminars, networking events, and the biggest exhibit hall in Greenbuild history in Chicago’s McCormick Center.
About the Energy Tax Deduction
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct 2005) is the first effort of the United States government to address U.S. energy policy since the Energy Policy Act of 1992. Among many other things, the 1,724-page law provides new tax incentives for a number of solar and energy efficiency measures including tax deductions for commercial buildings. This provision offers business taxpayers a deduction of $1.80 per square foot for commercial buildings that achieve a 50% reduction in annual energy cost to the user, compared to a reference building defined by the industry standard ASHRAE/IESNA 90.1-2001. Energy costs refer only to heating, cooling, lighting and water heating, since only these uses are within the scope of the ASHRAE standard and within the control of the building designer. More information on the IRS procedure can be found at http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-06-52.pdf.
Each of the three energy-using systems of the building: the envelope, the heating, cooling and water heating system, and lighting system, is eligible for one third of the incentive if it meets its share of the whole-building savings goal. Explicit interim compliance procedures are provided for lighting.
New construction in an existing building is also eligible for the tax deduction, with one-third of the deduction amount for new construction that affects the new energy-using system (such as lighting or heating, cooling and water heating).
Compliance is determined by third-party inspectors who review the plans and the actual in-place construction. Energy savings are determined by software that must be certified by the Department of Energy as meeting criteria of consistency and accuracy. EnergyGauge Summit has been listed as qualified software by the U.S. Department of Energy, (http://www.eere.energy.gov/buildings/info/qualified_software/).