Engineering and Modeling
Previous work at Cornell funded by NYSERDA resulted in development of two simulation engines for modeling energy use in greenhouses: GEM and modified EnergyPlus. Each has different methodologies and capabilities. For example, in addition to modeling greenhouses, modified EnergyPlus can also model plant factories. A single unified software architecture that merges the capabilities of the two engines would better facilitate the completion of GLASE tasks. To that end, the two engines shall be benchmarked against each other by running simulations of one or more identical greenhouse building model(s). The causes of any output discrepancies shall be determined and documented, and the anticipated approach to address discrepancies in the unified architecture shall be discussed. Software development shall be undertaken in order to create an integrated energy simulation engine with unified architecture that encapsulates the capabilities of both engines.
