ESP-r is an

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

d building performance energy modeling software that was created by the

University of Strathclyde The University of Strathclyde ( gd, Oilthigh Shrath Chluaidh) is a public research university located in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded in 1796 as the Andersonian Institute, it is Glasgow's second-oldest university, having received its royal chart ...

. It is primarily used in research, as a tool for consultants or as a teaching tool. ESP-r can model the thermal, visual and acoustic performance of a building as well as to estimate the heat, moisture and electrical power of the modeled building. ESP-r calculates

building performance Building performance is an attribute of a building that expresses how well that building carries out its functions. It may also relate to the performance of the building construction process. Categories of building performance are quality (how well ...

values based on a finite volume approach where it solves a set of conservation equations. It was developed in 1974 and was converted in 2002 to the

GNU Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general us ...

. ESP-r is designed to work on the

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...

operating system yet can be run in Windows using a Unix modulator or run with the Windows version. The current ESP-r Archivist is Ian Beausoleil Morrison. Some advantages that ESP-r has are its power and flexibility enables a well-informed user to optimize a house. The power behind ESP-r is its holistic nature and range to features. The downside is that the details and lack of documentations means users need specific knowledge to complete complex tasks. ESP-r is still mainly a research tool even though it is used for some consulting and teaching applications. ESP-r has been extensively validated and there are various studies and thesis done on the topic.Strachan P A. 2000. 'ESP-r: Summary of Validation Studies

References

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