by Shane Henson — August 8, 2012—New Buildings Institute (NBI), a nonprofit organization working to improve the energy performance of commercial buildings, has announced the official release of one of the first LEED Automation tools available to teams working on Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) projects.
The tool, COMNET Energy Modeling Portal, is an online platform used to collect energy modeling simulation results, perform quality assurance checks, and submit the results to LEED Online for Energy & Atmosphere Prerequisite 2 and Energy & Atmosphere Credit 1.
With the tool, LEED online users can now upload modeling results directly from their simulation software to the COMNET Energy Modeling Portal. The portal can be used for New Construction, Core & Shell and Schools projects. The portal filters the results automatically, performs basic quality assurance checks, and sends the results directly to LEED Online. From the portal, users can review the official LEED Online template to ensure that it has been filled out appropriately, says NBI.
The portal also supports exports from eQUEST, Trane TRACE 700 and EnergySoft’s EnergyPro. Trane and EnergySoft utilize the COMNET XML Schema, which is publicly available for vendors to incorporate in their building energy modeling software to export standard data. COMNET is working with other modeling software vendors who are adding a COMNET XML output option, says NBI.
The new COMNET portal is currently free to use, but payment for the service will be required after October 1. The introductory fee per project will range from $500 to $1,000 depending on project size.
