Design and Analysis of Building Electrification with Revit Systems Analysis

GUISEPPE ARDITO: So hello, everyone. And welcome to our Autodesk University session about Design and Analysis of Building Electrification with Revit System Analysis. So I just want to point out a few other courses at AU 2023 that cover content related to our presentation.

These courses are part of the AU 2023 unofficial sustainability and carbon track. And the second course highlighted in the list is particularly useful for those who want to learn more about the intricacy of Revit Air, which is fundamental to this course.

So this session is focused on building electrification. Why is focus on building electrification? The built environment notoriously contributes 40% of the global greenhouse gas emission. And the IC industry naturally has a responsibility to reduce its emissions. And the building electrification is one of many potential options to decrease the carbon emission of new and existing constructions.

In this AU session, we will take a closer look at how existing Revit system analysis capabilities can be extended to demonstrate new building performance analysis techniques. And these techniques can be used to increase our understanding of operational carbon impacts of our designs.

In this session, we will demonstrate how those new building performance analysis techniques can be used within Revit system analysis to provide design feedback on peak thermal loads, annual peak energy usage, and energy cost. But before we go jumping to the session, I will start with our intros.

I'm Guiseppe Ardito. And I'm a Senior Product Owner at Autodesk with a background as a sustainability consultant and building energy modeling specialist.

CHRIS BALBACH: And hi, everyone. My name is Chris Balbach. I'm the Vice President of Research and Development at Performance Systems Development of New York. I'm a passionate advocate of energy simulation tools and analysis. And I'm an expert in all things Open Studio.

GUISEPPE ARDITO: So I won't bore you by reading all the learning objectives. I just would like to summarize and say that Chris and I want this AU session to be practical, so hands on course for extending the capabilities of Revit systems analysis. And we will provide electronic access to all files and documentation and examples that we present today.

So we hope that at the end of this course, you leave excited to learn how to apply and perhaps extend this workflow to your daily practices. Here, you can see our course agenda for today. So we will begin with a background overview of Revit Systems Analysis, features, and capabilities.

We will end with a discussion on future developments and next steps. And in between, we will walk through the use of five custom Open Studio Measures and demonstrate their use with two new System Analysis workflow. Again, these materials or the materials samples, documentation, we will distribute it via file share, along with a much more detailed leave-behind documentation.

So as we mentioned, the first part of the session, as we saw in the agenda, covers an overview of Revit Systems Analysis. We know that Systems Analysis is a set of features and framework in Revit that enables HVAC design, engineering, and analysis workflow to be conducted in a significantly more collaborative, integrated, open, and accessible way.

Today, in the IEC industry, we have expert who knows about the architecture, envelope, structure, BIM, and expert, they are more oriented on HVAC systems, design, sizing, energy, and comfort analysis.

So usually, these two groups don't talk to each other. And most of MEP engineers tend to use third party tools in their day-to-day workflow. So since its release, Systems Analysis bridging the gap between those two kind of designer and their analysis tools, leveraging the features implemented by Autodesk in terms of BIM collaboration, Revit modeling, specifically for the architectural model, space, and surfaces, HVAC equipment, and plant selection, energy, thermal comfort, and cost consumptions.

So regarding the energy analysis and thermal comfort in HVAC design, we know that under the hood, the Revit Systems Analysis workflow is based on six steps-- designing, modeling in Revit, exporting our model through the GB XML schema, that becomes our source of truth for the energy and loading and sizing analysis, analyzing the exported model via Open Studio, running energy simulation through EnergyPlus, and reporting the analysis outcomes in Systems Analysis.

So based on the described workflow, this analysis can be considered a centralized one-stop-shop platform to design, model, and assess HVAC performance, thanks to two open source platform, Open Studio and EnergyPlus.

And to give you a little bit of context, on the left side, you can see other centralized and decentralized building energy modeling platform available in the IEC software environment. As we already mentioned, the first step of system analysis workflow is the modeling step. That is going to happen in Revit.

Those are things to do in Revit, to create some input data. And then, users are going to press a button and perform an analysis that generates some other data. So just to break down on the modeling side, users should define the architectural model, project input needed for energy and HVAC sizing analysis.

And the main one are the location, so project location; massing or geometry, and the massing or geometry depends on the stage of the project; material thermal properties, correlated to the mass and the geometry; room, analytical space, and space function, that are helpful for the energy analytical model; and HVAC systems.

So once, basically, the user defined those attributes in Systems Analysis, an energy analytical model has been exported. But ultimately, the first thing to remember is that when people talk about creating an energy analytical model from an architectural model, it's worth to understand that you are not creating the analytical model into the architectural model.

Because the architectural model as a whole lot of more information-- or more stuff in it that you don't need really need to have in the analytical model. On the other hand, Systems Analysis creates a model that is based on GbXML schema.

So basically, try to collect from the architectural model all the necessary information based on the GbXML schema to create the energy analytical model. And why the GbXML schema? Why we decide to export the model from Revit in a GbXML schema? GbXML is a type of text-friendly computer language that enables software platform to communicate information with little or no human interaction.

Across some of the years, GbXML became a de facto industry standard schema. And its adoption streamlines the transfer of building information between, to, and from architectural and engineering models and enables interoperability between AEC software.

So once the energy analytical model is created, it's created based on the GbXML schema. It's exported from Revit and is imported in Open Studio. So Systems Analysis, once created in the analytical model, performs a building energy simulation.

Today, a stable building energy program that triggers dynamic simulation is Open Studio. It's a graphical interface for EnergyPlus. And it's open source. It really facilitates the QA QC process, since you represent the most direct way to investigate the energy analytical model, EAM, in the energy modeling context and validate the engineering solution implemented in Systems Analysis.

Once the validation process is being completed in Open Studio, an energy simulation is triggered in EnergyPlus. And EnergyPlus is a whole building energy simulation program that engineers, architects, and researchers use to model both energy consumption for heating, cooling, ventilation, lighting, plug-in loads, and water use in buildings.

As OpenStudio, even EnergyPlus is an open source platform. It's continuously updated by NREL. And it supports Measure. And the Measure-- Chris is going to expand more-- but help to automate the energy workflow. In terms of adoption, EnergyPlus is extensively used across North America, and same for Open Studio.

Last but not least, the last step of our workflow, our analysis workflow is the reporting step. Analysis results are reported in Systems Analysis. And they can display energy metrics and HVAC metrics. They first represent annual and peak energy results with the opportunity to analyze the data at the hourly and sub-hourly level, since the default settings run for the analysis is 15 minutes time steps. And the second provides data regarding sizing and loading aspect of the design HVAC system.

So now, Chris is going to basically present and expand more on the OpenStudio Measures.

CHRIS BALBACH: Thank you so much, Giuseppe, for that. And yeah, we're going to spend the next 15 slides or so talking about OpenStudio Measures, learning about how they can be used, what they are, and so forth.

So let's begin here. I'm sure many of you who are watching this course are familiar with automating routine tasks in Revit. And you're probably using tools like Dynamo. Or maybe you're writing some macros or some add-ons. Or maybe you're using other script-based methods, again, to automate your routine tasks.

Like Dynamo, OpenStudio provides us with another method that is accessible from within Revit to automate or to script Revit's building performance analysis workflows. OpenStudio's automation consists of scripts, which are actually collections of code, which we refer to as OpenStudio Measures.

Now, OpenStudio Measures can be written in either the Python or Ruby programming languages. And they can also take input from Revit or from external file sources, such as CSV files. OpenStudio Measures are incredibly flexible. They can be written to make nearly any change imaginable that you can think of to a model.

Now, Revit out of the box ships with nine default OpenStudio Measures. These nine Measures are used to drive two default Systems Analysis workflows. These default Measures are typically stored in a specific folder on a user's local machine, you can see here at the bottom right. Like a Dynamo script, additional custom OpenStudio Measures can be written by anyone and can be shared with others.

A large collection of publicly available OpenStudio Measures are available today from the Building Component Library. These Measures are searchable by category and type and can be used as a basis for additional Measure customization. Some of these Measures can be used as-is. But others require careful inspection and understanding of the Measure intent before using.

Now, users who are going to write their own OpenStudio Measures or who are going to work with Measures downloaded from the Building Component Library will also want to become familiar with these three diagnostic tools. On the left, we have the OS application.

In the middle, we have the OpenStudio command line interface. And on the right, we have the Everything app. These tools can help users inspect OpenStudio models after OpenStudio Measures have been applied to them to help confirm the expected OpenStudio Measure behavior.

Our leave-behind course document will explain in much greater detail where you can get these applications, how you can set them up, and what you can do with them. The Measure set that will be shared as part of this class have been stress tested by a number of Revit users. And as such, these tools should not be necessary if you're going to work with the Measures that are distributed with this course.

Now, the OpenStudio application is a free and open source tool that's developed and maintained by the OpenStudio coalition. The OS app is a critical tool. It's an invaluable tool that can be used to help us perform detailed inspections of the OpenStudio model inputs after the model has been created by Revit.

Now, the basic method here is that we're going to snag and inspect a file, a very special file, called in.osm, which is an OpenStudio model. And we're going to open that model using the OS app. And again, inspect the model inputs to ensure that it produced what we expected.

Now, the OS application can also be used to simulate an OpenStudio completely outside of Revit. However, if this is done, the modeled results, the model reports, they cannot get pushed back into Revit. Now, this is your first look at a JSON-configured OSW, or OpenStudio workflow file. This file is used as one of the two default Systems Analysis workflows that ships with Revit.

Again, OSW stands for OpenStudio workflow. The OSW file describes the sequential list of the nine default OpenStudio Measures that are used to create an OpenStudio model. The OSW file also describes the order that these Measures are executed. Each OpenStudio Measure can be categorized as either a model Measure, an EnergyPlus, Measure or a reporting Measure.

Note that model Measures execute first, followed by EnergyPlus Measures, followed by reporting Measures. Again, our leave-behind handout will explain the differences between these Measure types in greater detail. Of the five Measures we are describing in this course, four of them are model Measures. And one of them is an EnergyPlus Measure.

So now, we're going to take a few minutes and talk about Revit OpenStudio workflows. Again, Revit OpenStudio workflows are essentially the recipe, the collection, the description, the instructions for how to collect and execute OpenStudio Measures inside a single Revit OpenStudio workflow.

As Giuseppe discussed earlier, this is a visual representation of how data flows through a Revit Systems Analysis workflow. In our work together today, we will be inserting new OpenStudio Measures and creating new Systems Analysis workflows. To operate these Measures properly, our new OpenStudio Measures will require additional data that is not currently available in the Revit user interface. To describe and carry this data, these Measures will use user-editable CSV files.

Recall that in Revit, there are nine default OpenStudio Measures that are used to create two default OpenStudio workflow files. These two OpenStudio workflow files can be used to produce two different types of graphical output reports. One workflow type produces HVAC systems loads and sizing analysis reports, while another workflow type produces building energy analysis results.

So we are now looking at a side-by-side view of the two Revit default OSW, or OpenStudio workflow, JSON files. You'll see them named at the top left of these two side-by-side images. Differences between these two files are highlighted in yellow. I want to point out here that the only difference between a load-based workflow on the left and an energy-analysis-based workflow on the right are some settings of some individual Measures, again, highlighted in yellow.

We will be copying these base OSW files and using them to create our custom OSW workflows. Our basic flow here will be to copy these files, rename them, and then insert custom OpenStudio Measures into our OSW files at the appropriate location and section.

To reiterate, every building performance analysis scenario that uses custom OpenStudio Measures should involve creating two new OpenStudio workflow files, one for equipment sizing predictions and another for energy usage predictions.

So to create a new OpenStudio workflow, we will again begin by copying a default OpenStudio workflow, renaming it. And now, that has become a custom workflow. We will take our custom workflow file. And we will select one or more Measures from our collection or our library of Measures that we want to use in our new workflow.

We will configure the Measure by configuring the sidecar CSV file or other mechanisms that describe the Measure, the information that the Measure needs. We will point to the new workflow to Revit so that it can be seen from inside of the Revit user interface, after which it will be available for us to execute from Revit to generate the new analysis reports.

So again, in this course, we're going to create four new Systems Analysis workflows. To accomplish this, we're going to first take our standard workflow files and copy them, which include our standard Measures, our nine Measures. We will take our custom Measure collection, our five Measures which will be distributed as part of this course.

We'll take all five or two or three or however many we want to combine. We'll configure those Measures with the information needed to carry the information needed by the Measure. We will then create an inject the Measures into our custom workflow file into the OSW JSON file in the proper location.

We will point Revit to our custom OSW files, after which our workflows will be visible inside the Revit UI. Then, from within Revit, we can execute our custom Systems Analysis workflows just by selecting a workflow, choosing a report name, and running the analysis. Now, the sidecar CSV approach that our five Measures use, it's workable.

It's essentially a proof of concept that we're showing here at AU 2023. But it leaves a lot of room for improvement. To improve usability of this approach, it would be better if we were able to eliminate the CSV file interaction entirely and replace it with a well-designed Revit add on that collects information needed to run a building performance analysis workflow.

The Revit software team has been working very diligently and very hard on developing an add on, such as we see in this mockup, to demonstrate how to do this. And we expect to be able to share this add on soon with interested users. When this add on is available, we believe it can be used to showcase the power and flexibility of custom building performance analysis scenarios that Revit is capable of executing.

So we've talked a little bit about the workflows, the recipe, if you will, of a custom workflow. Now, we need to talk about the ingredients, the Measures themselves. So we're going to spend the next 10 minutes or so talking about five new custom OpenStudio Measures that have been developed specifically for this class to showcase building performance analysis capabilities.

Our first Measure is titled "Service Hot Water System Designs." And it's meant, again, to allow us to use Revit to address Revit's current inability to model the energy impacts of service hot water loads and equipment. Service hot water systems can be characterized by hot water generation; hot water heaters; hot water storage; perhaps tank type storage; hot water distribution; piping, insulated or not; and, of course, hot water pumps; and finally, hot water usage, hot water draws experienced by occupants of a building.

This OpenStudio Measure addresses all of these components of hot water system design. So our first custom OpenStudio Measure uses two CSV files to carry necessary analysis data. The Measure will read the information in these files.

And it will create typical hot water usage, equipment, distribution, and loads based on user-assigned information, including ASHRAE space types. This Measure will create new OpenStudio objects for service hot water equipment and loads. Typical hot water usages are derived from ASHRAE standard practices.

Let's take a look at the first of our two CSV files associated with this Measure. This CSV file contains three inputs, three rows. The first row is a reference to the second CSV file and is user defined. Our leave-behind document for this course will document in more detail the enumerations and choices for the other courses.

But suffice it to say, the second row defines a building level, efficiency level. And the third row describes the hot water system fuel source.

Now, we're taking a look at the second CSV file that is associated with this Measure. The second CSV file contains three individual columns. The first two columns represent information about unique energy analytical model spaces and their associated GbXML space IDs.

The third column contains a mapped typical usage value associated with an OpenStudio space type. The data necessary for filling out this table can be extracted from the GbXML file that is generated as part of a systems analysis workflow. The OpenStudio standards gem documentation is a source of allowable enumerations of the third column.

And again, our course leave-behind document will describe in much greater detail where you can find these enumerations and how they work.

Our second OpenStudio Measure is all about modeling all-electric HVAC systems. Now, to model an HVAC system design, of course, we need to know what type of equipment we want to model, what is the efficiency of that equipment, what is the energy source that is used by that equipment, and what are the spaces and zones that are linked to that equipment.

Again, linking back to building decarbonization, there's a need here to be able to better communicate the impacts of electrifying our HVAC systems, both in new construction and retrofit scenarios. So this custom OpenStudio Measure will use a single CSV file to carry this necessary analysis data to model all-electric HVAC systems.

This is a powerful Measure because it can leverage the topology that is contained in Revit already, defining air loop and zone HVAC equipment that is created by users. In addition, this Measure demonstrates the ability for users to override select HVAC equipment model parameters, such as fan and pump pressures.

So this Measure, again, requires first that the Revit UI be used to establish the relationship between analytical spaces and air systems, zone equipment, water loops, and system zones. The Measure will persist these relationships that are identified inside the Revit UI.

And we'll use them when creating new HVAC systems. The Measure, again, will also provide users with some optional inputs for overriding several HVAC equipment efficiencies and other parameters.

So again, this Measure uses a single CSV file titled "Building Level Mapping." The CSV file carries all of the necessary HVAC system analysis data to create the HVAC systems. The Measure will read this file. It will destroy the existing HVAC systems that were created in the Revit UI.

And it will create new HVAC systems that honor the user's assigned inputs. The new HVAC systems will be configured to meet a user-selected performance standard, such as 90.1 2013 levels of efficiency, or 90.1 2010, or even 90.1 2019.

The performance standard chosen by the user defines the modeled equipment performance as well as the modeled equipment controls, as defined, again, by the ASHRAE standard. Depending on how users configure this file, the Building Level Mapping CSV file, this Measure can be used to apply existing HVAC systems, let's say, 20-year-old HVAC systems to a Revit model or proposed HVAC systems, ASHRAE 90.1 2019 levels of efficiency-- both ways.

So we're now looking at that building level CSV file. And the CSV file here, again, contains four primary inputs, the first four rows in the file. The first input is the ASHRAE performance standard. The second input is an air loop HVAC system type. The third input is a zone equipment HVAC system type. And the fourth primary input is a climate zone where the building is located. Several secondary inputs follow.

These inputs are optional. If provided, they will override the values that are created in the new HVAC systems. And again, the leave-behind document that Giuseppe and I are generating will get into much greater detail for the allowable enumerations for air loop HVAC system types, our zone equipment HVAC system types.

Suffice it to say that there's about 94 total system types here that can be used. There's, as we can see in this slide, is it seven different ASHRAE standards, 16 different climate zones, and a half a dozen or so different optional parameters for overrides.

Our third Measure that we're going to be using in our course is titled "Renewables and Batteries." And now, we all know, again, as we decarbonize our electric grid, the buildings we live and work in are going to need to become more adept at generating and storing energy, not just consuming energy. These generation and storage systems are going to have to be considered or analyzed as assets.

And they will need to be managed as assets. So proper analysis and consideration of PV storage system sizes will be critical to defining cost-effective decarbonization pathways moving forward. This custom OpenStudio Measure uses a single CSV file to carry the necessary analysis data to model a PV system, a battery storage system, and a battery management system.

This is also a very powerful Measure, as it allows the performance of different sizes of PV systems, different sizes of battery systems, and different charge management strategies to be evaluated.

So this particular Measure was written to take advantage of time of use tariff arbitrage scenarios, where an electricity tariff exists that has high differential energy prices that vary throughout a day. In this scenario, a battery system would be charged using grid-provided electricity during periods of time when electricity is most inexpensive. And the battery would be discharged during times of the day when electricity is most expensive.

In addition, during any sunlight hours, a PV system can also offset purchased electricity during peak or expensive pricing periods. PV and battery storage systems can range from simple pre-packaged, pre-engineered, integrated systems, such as a Tesla Powerwall or a Tesla Powerpack, and a Tesla Powerroof married together, or complex engineered systems where each component is individually selected.

This OpenStudio Measure can model both of these scenarios and many in between. This OpenStudio Measure, again, uses a single CSV file to carry the necessary analysis data to model the PV system, the battery storage system, and a battery management strategy.

So again, this is a powerful Measure, as it allows the performance, the annual impacts, the daily impacts, the hourly impacts of different sizes of PV systems, battery systems, and charge management strategies to be evaluated. Now, the single CSV file associated with this Measure contains a lot of inputs, 41 separate inputs. That's a lot.

But again, this is a fairly complicated thing that we're trying-- it's a system of components we're trying to model, here. We can see here on the fourth column, that the data collection is organized by the system component. Users could model a PV system only by simply modeling a battery with near-zero capacity. Users can model a battery storage system only by modeling a PV system with a rated power output of near zero.

So this Measure again can be flexibly configured to model many battery storage systems by themselves, PV systems by themselves, PV plus battery. The impact of many different battery management inputs related to charge, discharge, and state of charge limits can also be explored. And I'll just reiterate again, the leave-behind document for our course will describe these inputs and references in much greater detail.

Now, our fourth Measure that we're going to demonstrate today is all about electric tariffs. So we all know it's a critical component of any kind of cost effectiveness calculation is how much is this energy going to cost? What is the expected operational energy cost associated with the particular scenario?

Accurate estimates of these operating costs are very important, especially as our real-world energy tariffs continue to get more and more complex, and especially when under electrification scenarios, we probably are going to be doing fuel switching. We're getting rid of propane or natural gas, and we're going to an all-electric building. This Measure, again, will allow users to specify extremely simple tariffs or extremely complex tariffs or many situations between those two.

So this OpenStudio Measure was written to allow users to define both time of day and seasonal tariff scenarios, where the cost of electricity and the cost of power can be associated with incremental block values. The Measure can be used to model tariff conditions that differ between a supplier of electricity and a transmission and distribution provider of electricity.

This OS Measure, again, uses a single CSV file to carry the necessary analysis data to model these tariffs. This is a powerful Measure, again, as the Measure estimates the cost of both energy consumption and peak power. The power cost component of many modern tariffs is, or can be, significant. And reductions in thermal load peaks from improved envelope and space gate management that result in smaller HVAC equipment sizes can return peak energy cost savings, as well as energy cost savings, which, by using this Measure, can be more accurately quantified.

The CSV file associated with this Measure contains 64 inputs, quite a few. However, those inputs are, again, organized into three major categories-- a set of general inputs required for all tariffs, a set of supplier tariff inputs, required, again, for a simple tariff, and another set of transmission and distribution tariff inputs, required if a scenario actually has a supplier and a transmission and distribution tariff situation.

So users can simplify this arrangement quite easily just by-- such as scenarios that do not have a seasonal or a time of day component by simply describing the cost-per-kilowatt hours or the cost-per-Kw values of those periods as unchanging. The course leave-behind document will give several examples of different complexities of tariffs that can be modeled with this arrangement.

And finally, our final Measure, our fifth Measure, is the ASHRAE baseline Measure. So this OS Measure, again, was written to rapidly transform a proposed model into an ASHRAE baseline variant. Users can combine this Measure with the tariff Measure in a workflow to provide estimates of energy cost savings over an ASHRAE Appendix G baseline. Transformations into several different 90.1 Appendix G baselines are supported, up to and including ASHRAE 90.1 2019.

This Measure transforms all regulated loads found in a proposed model back to their baseline values. The Measure also replaces proposed HVAC systems with their mapped Appendix G HVAC system types along with the mandated Appendix G controls. It is important to note here that the Measure does not implement exceptions or credits that are defined within ASHRAE 90.1 Appendix G documentation-- for example, additional fan power allowances that can be applied when duct silencers are used, situations like that.

However, these credits and exception scenarios are relatively rare. And if we leave them out, we just need to recognize, again, our energy cost savings over an ASHRAE baseline is actually conservative. If we don't take the credit, what we report out is a conservative, slightly underestimate.

So again, this Measure actually has two CSV files that carry the necessary analysis information to create an ASHRAE baseline model. The first file contains information about the building, building level. And the second file contains information about space type mappings for transforming regulated loads.

Now, let's take a look at that first file here. Again, the first five rows in this file represent required inputs for the standard that-- the first one, actually, is a file reference to the second CSV file. The second input is the ASHRAE 90.1 standard we are attempting to transform into. The third is a building type.

The fourth input is an ASHRAE climate zone. And the fifth one is just a default debugging tool that you could flip if you'd like. The remaining three inputs are only necessary if we're going to model 90.1 2016 or 2019 baselines. And again, our leave-behind document will explain the allowable enumerations and what they do in much greater detail. Now, the second CSV file for this Measure, we're looking at it here.

It has three columns. The structure is very similar to the CSV file that was associated with the service hot water Measure. So this Measure contains essentially a table that maps the energy analytical model spaces to supported ASHRAE 90.1 space type enumerations. The data for filling out the first two columns of this table can be extracted from our GbXML file, which is generated as part of a Systems Analysis workflow.

The OpenStudio standards gem documentation is a source of allowable enumerations for this third column. These values are, again, used by the Measure to marry, again, regulated baseline values such as lighting power densities and envelope properties. And again, our course leave-behind document will explain where to get these information and what are the allowable enumerations in much greater detail.

Well, you've seen five Measures now, five custom OpenStudio Measures that do five really cool things. You've seen what an OpenStudio workflow is now. I think it's time to put it all together. So let's do that.

So how do we put it all together? Well, circling back, now that you've seen the custom OpenStudio Measures, let's select and inject a few of them and create two new OpenStudio workflows. For our first example, we're going to use three of those five Measures to create two new OpenStudio workflows.

In our theme of decarbonization, we'll configure our service hot water system to be all electric. And we'll model our new HVAC systems for air loops to be a heat recovery VRF systems paired with DOAS systems, while our zone HVAC equipment will be replaced with PTHP equipment.

Recall that in an OpenStudio workflow or an OSW, OpenStudio Measures are executed sequentially. The output from one Measure is passed as input into the next. Note that, again, working from top to bottom, the workflow will first add typical hot water systems to our model.

It will then destroy the existing HVAC systems and replace them with all-electric HVAC systems. And it will then add our user-defined electricity tariff to our model.

Now, remember, prior to running these workflows, we're going to need to run Revit Systems Analysis to create our desired HVAC system topology for this Measure, air loops and HVAC equipment, zone HVAC equipment. We're also going to need to carefully configure our CSV files to get the service hot water HVAC and tariff descriptions that we want to model in our scenario.

So to create our new workflow files for example 1, we'll start by making copies of the two default OpenStudio workflow files. Then, we'll carefully insert JSON snippets-- we're making our recipe-- for our three custom OpenStudio Measures into their proper locations. On the left here, we see a copy of the default HVAC system loads and sizing workflow file, which has been saved as example 1.

Recall again that OpenStudio Measure references must be carefully inserted into the OSW file, as the location of the insertion depends on the Measure type and when you want the Measure the execute. Our Create Typical Hot Water and Create Electric HVAC System Measures are both model Measures. So we will insert them at the end of the model Measure section of the workflow file.

Our Revit Analyze Electric Tariff Measure is an EnergyPlus Measure. So we will Insert it after the Add XML Output Control Measure, which is also an EnergyPlus Measure. We'll do that in both of our workflow files. So we'll have two new workflows here, one for sizing and one for energy analysis. Once we point these workflows-- point Revit in the UI to these workflow files, we'll see them in the UI.

They'll show up here, two example workflows. And we'll simply be able to run them by giving a custom report name and choosing them and run analysis. So let's do it. For our live demo example here, we're going to go ahead and run this building energy analysis workflow for our example 1 configuration.

So we'll start off here with our Revit model. Again, It's a big box pharmacy-type model. We've generated an energy analytical model for this. You can see that. That was done prior to any of our OpenStudio workflow work. Just looking at the energy analytical model-- and I'm looking over on the right to see that it has systems analysis HVAC systems in it.

You can see we've got one air handling system with four VAV boxes. We've got 3 zone equipment. They happen to be P tax PTHPs. So this is that work we have to do before we run the workflow to create an HVAC system. We're creating our topology.

Now, we're going to go into our directory for our Measures and recall our example 1 workflow had three custom Measures in it. I'm highlighting those three right now. We'll go into them one at a time. The first Measure in the workflow was our Create Hot Water Systems Measure. Go into that one.

Inside that, we have a resources folder, which then, inside that are the two CSV files that we discussed earlier. Let's go take a look at those CSV files, how they're configured. You can see, again, we've configured them with electricity as our source. This is a medium office, 2004 level of equipment efficiency. And we've pointed to the second CSV file as our first argument in that.

The second CSV file we're looking at now, each row in this file is, again, represents one analytical space. And the third column represents our link to how service hot water will be generated. Many of the spaces have no service hot water. I'm showing here, again, where we can look in the OpenStudio standards and figure out what the allowable enumerations are for that third column of our second CSV file.

You can see here, again, for something like a retail 90.1 2007, the back space would have hot water usage. But again, many of the other space types don't.

So we've configured our CSV files for that Measure to the way we want. We'll go to the second custom Measure, the Resources folder of that Measure, the CSV file of that Measure. And we can see that. Again, we're concerned about the first four or first five. Here, we're creating a 90.1 2013 heat recovery VRF for our air loops.

Our zone equipment will PTHPs with ERVs. And we're located in New York, which is ASHRAE climate zone 4A. So we've configured that the way we want. Now, we'll go on to our third Measure, which is the tariff Measure. Again, the resources folder of that Measure and the CSV file inside that folder, we're going to configure that file to what we want.

This is a very simple configuration. We have, it looks like, two tariffs, each at $0.08 a kilowatt hour. So roughly $0.16 a kilowatt hour here. One of our tariffs has a power charge, demand charges. The other does not. And again, we can take some time to develop very simple or very complex tariffs through configuring the CSV file.

We'll configure it to what we want. We'll save it. And then, we'll go back.

Now, we're going to go look at our workflows. So again, to our directory where we keep our workflows, and the workflows that we have created, let's go look at those, those OSW files. This is the one for the annual building energy simulation. I've highlighted the Measures that are inside this file.

You can see them clicked in green. I'm highlighting now the three Measures that I've inserted, the three custom Measures that I've inserted into this workflow. You'll notice, again, two of them have been inserted because their model Measures, in that section. And the third one was inserted because it's an EnergyPlus Measure down further below. Save that.

And now, we are ready to go. So OK, we're ready to go. We point Revit to that. We choose our workflow. We give our report a name. And we press the all-important Run Analysis button. Revit is going to spin off an analysis. And depending on the complexity of your file, this could take a little bit.

Sure, good. In the meantime, we're going to use that Everything tool to grab the GbXML file produced in the background and just want to show here, this is where we can extract the GbXML Space ID and the GbXML Space Name that is in many of our CSV files. Two of our Measures had CSV files that need this. So this is where that information can be grabbed, the GbXML Space ID and the Space Name.

So we're watching for this. We're also able to, for example, grab a file called in n.osm. We're using everything. We right click, grab that, cut it or copy it, put it somewhere else. I'll just put it here, for example, in my Downloads folder. And I'm going to open this file up in the OpenStudio application.

I want to see what the Measure did. I want to see what happened in our workflow. So to do that, I've got to open up that file, n.osm, in our OS app. I've got to use the right version of the OS app, version 1.4 with Revit systems analysis 2020 4.1. And I'll just simply open up that file again and poke at it a little bit.

So the first thing I'm going to poke at is going to be the HVAC systems. We had a Measure. It was supposed to create a VRF system with heat recovery and whatnot. So we'll go to the OS app. We'll click on the ribbon for HVAC systems. We'll click on our VRF subsystem.

And we see that we have one VRF heat recovery unit with four indoor units. Our Measure did what we said it would do. And to the right, there's actually some detailed inputs. The override COP that I put into the Measure was actually used as well. So feel good about this. It's doing what I'd hoped. So again, we could do this to look at hot water inputs, hot water systems that were created.

We can use the OS app to inspect our work. Meanwhile, Revit has been calculating in the background. It's almost finished. When Revit finishes, it's going to pop up this node in the bottom right to tell us that reports are ready. With that report, we will see here that now we can go to our ribbon in the Project Browser and actually look at the report.

So this report, if we look at it now, the monthly overview section, for example, actually has some hot water energy, water systems. The little orange color, we can see the table. There's some water systems, again, electricity that was used to-- the water in use, hot water in use.

We can also see in the detailed report section of this if we go down to the electricity tariff, a detailed calculation of the tariff that we modeled. The categories of the tariff, again, are all here.

So there you go. Our tariff made it in. We would want to, again, expect this to make sure our inputs were what we expect. But the information is there in Revit. We've closed the loop. So that was an example of example 1 where we use three of our custom Measures.

Let's do one more example before we move on. I'm going to call this example 2. And the only difference between example 1 and example 2 is we've injected that ASHRAE baseline Measure into our workflow, four of our five Measures, we're using now. So again, recall what's going to happen here. What's going to happen is that our VRF systems are going to get created.

And then, the ASHRAE baseline is going to step on those systems and create the equivalent ASHRAE baseline that maps to them in addition to creating the ASHRAE baseline regulated lighting, power densities, and loads, and all those sorts of things.

So just to see how this works, let's go ahead and show another video of this. We're only going to show only what differs. So same building, again, same energy analytical model, same topology for the HVAC systems-- what has changed here is our workflow. So we have a new Measure in that workflow. Let's go look at that Measure. It's titled "Revit Create Baseline Building." It has a resources folder. Inside that is a configuration folder, two of them-- sorry, file.

We'll look at the first CSV file here. And we can see the required inputs for it. We're going to do a 90.1 2010 baseline here for a retail building in, again, New York City. The second CSV file that we'll be looking at in just a moment will describe the space type mappings. So that file is here.

And again, the first two columns of this file look very similar. We've seen them before in the hot water. It's the third column here that matters. This is our, again, a mapping to an ASHRAE 90.1 regulated space types. So we've configured those mappings for each energy analytical generated space.