IESVE

IES Virtual Environment (IESVE) IESVE [80] is an in-depth suite of building performance analysis tools. It allows the design and operation of energy efficient buildings. Whether working on a new building or existing building renovation project, IESVE offers the ability to test different options, identify the optimal passive solutions, compare low-emission and renewable-energy technologies, and formulate conclusions on building energy indicators. It includes numerous utilities providing sustainable analysis compatible with the needs of different design team members and design stages. The main modules included in this software are the following:

• Model, IT geometry creation and editing


Murray et al. [81] applied IESVE to plan a retrofitting project of a case study building located at Cork University College, for which both modelling and actual interventions were applied. This approach allowed the comparison between simulated and measured data and a good agreement between them was concluded. Ouedraogo et al. [82] used IESVE to investigate the impact of climate change on future trends of electricity demand for air conditioning in public buildings within the period 2010–2080. Their study highlights the fact that the predicted mean temperature using a specific climate-change data scenario will increase by about 2 ◦C by 2050, yielding to a significant increase in air-conditioning energy consumption for case-study buildings in the Burkina Faso built environment. For this specific region, they concluded that shading devices could reduce the cooling load by 40%; thus, they could play an important role in climate-change resilience strategies for buildings. Recently, the tool was used to investigate the energy-saving potential obtained by the application of bio-based wall construction in rural residential buildings in Northeast China [83]. Interestingly, it was found that reductions of 45.82–204.07 kWh/m2/year in heating energy demand and more than 40% in coal consumption are possible through the application of bio-based wall constructions.
