Automating Prescriptive Compliance Process for Building Energy Efficiency Through BIM

Energy efficiency requirements in building codes serve as the primary measure for ensuring the energy efficiency of the buildings. In the United States, different states adopt various models to better tailor building energy codes to energy efficiency goals. California is among the few states which have adopted the most recent commercial and residential building energy codes (i.e. ASHRAE 90.1-2010). California's Title 24 requires new residential construction to be zero net energy by 2020 and new commercial buildings to reach this goal by 2030. The 2016 California's nonresidential Building Energy Efficiency Standards can be met through two different methods to demonstrate compliance: Prescriptive or Performance. The usual practice to adopt Prescriptive method is to perform manual analysis for the prescribed set of requirements. This can be done by hand or through simple spreadsheets. On the other hand, the Performance compliance method requires energy analysis through an approved computer modeling software that allows for energy trade-offs between different building components. Although the Performance method offers flexibility with the energy analysis and provides more accurate results for the energy consumption in a building. This method, however, requires using additional software on top of the one used by architects and designers to create their working designs and construction documents. The purpose of this project is to investigate the adoption of the simplest method of the two, namely the Prescriptive approach through a widely used building information modeling (BIM) software. In this integrated approach for design, energy analysis, and documentation, the need for using multiple software platforms is eliminated. The goal is to leverage the simplicity of the Prescriptive method together with flexibility of BIM to automate the Title 24 compliance process. Results are presented through a case study to comply with indoor lighting Prescriptive requirements of nonresidential buildings.