by Brianna Crandall — February 13, 2015—Sefaira, London- and New York-based provider of software for high-performance building design, recently announced Sefaira Systems, a new product for heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) design engineers that allows them to more easily and cost effectively perform early-stage HVAC system analysis. With this expanded product portfolio, Sefaira now connects engineers and architects directly on one cloud platform, enabling an “unprecedented” level of collaboration and improved efficiency that is critical to the design of high-performance buildings.
Sefaira Systems enables early collaboration critical to the design of high-performance buildings.(Click on image to enlarge)
Sefaira Systems provides real-time analysis of mechanical systems and envelope options using EnergyPlus, the industry-standard building analysis engine developed by the U.S. Department of Energy. Sefaira Systems enables engineers to work directly with the architects’ CAD/BIM (computer-aided design / building information modeling) data without having to rebuild the architectural model in a complex engineering tool, a process that typically took several hours, even days.
Now, in just minutes, engineers can examine multiple design options and provide high-quality system sizing and peak load information to their clients. The ability to perform this type of analysis, rapidly and on multiple options, enables design teams to ensure maximum building performance while minimizing construction costs.
“Energy consultants can meaningfully differentiate themselves by providing robust feedback to their customers within a short timeframe,” said Sefaira Product Director and Professional Engineer Andrew Corney. “Until now they’ve often had to try to complete the analysis tasks with overly complex software. Cutting corners by using rules of thumb is increasingly difficult with savvier clients calling for more detail on less familiar solutions. With Sefaira Systems, we are addressing this problem by providing a tool that allows trusted advisers to provide robust early analysis, on time and at low cost.”
DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy offers a blog page on building energy modeling and the applications of the software Sefaira developed with the help of DOE tools.
