IES Creates Unique Climate Energy Index System for Sustainable Design

Provides Designers with Simple Metric to Assess Current and Future Climate Data
and Its Relation to Building Energy-Use
BOSTON--(Business Wire)--
Integrated Environmental Solutions (IES), a provider of integrated performance
analysis software for sustainable building design, today announced the creation
of an innovative Climate Energy Index system for its
software. This unique new index provides designers with a simple intuitive tool
to assess the character of any climate and the potential it has to affect
building energy usage. A world first, this addition to the software allows
designers and architects to easily analyze climate data for any location during
concept design stages in a building independent manner, helping to identify the
theoretical energy needed to maintain occupant comfort, and inform strategy
direction.

Looking at the climate, in the building independent manner, at both the local
level and within a global context creates a detailed understanding of the
climate, what regions share similar characteristics, where energy use needs to
be focused in order to deliver occupant comfort and also provides a simple
benchmark for comparing climate/weather files. It is a key element often
overlooked in the sustainable building design process. In addition, including
future weather data allows an understanding of climate dynamics over the life of
the building to be achieved.

The IES Climate Energy Index assists in both the masterplanning and concept
design stages to understand what passive and low-carbon design strategies make
the most sense. It recognizes that building energy use is very climate
dependent. Building simulation results can also be compared with this Index to
give a simple measure of design performance against potential given the climate.

The index is a simple measure of the potential energy (kWh/yr per M3/hr)
required to maintain air quality within a comfortable occupant zone, and is
split into heating, cooling, humidification and dehumidification requirements.
It is based on climate alone excluding any consideration of building design or
occupancy. It can be applied generically for 24-hour use, or to suit the
occupancy patterns of any building.

"This new Index alleviates a major `ease of understanding` problem for designers
and architects who are looking to achieve a fully sustainable building," said
Don McLean, founder and managing director of IES. "We are providing climate
information combined with energy-usage data in a new and more informative
manner, eliminating unnecessary collation and interrogation to facilitate
understanding, and all within easy-to-use applications. This new Index system is
a unique value-add to our existing software offerings, and one which we are
already developing further."

The Climate Energy Index system is available for IES
software users. Within free VE-Ware, the headline Climate Energy Index figures
are provided. Both the VE-Toolkits and VE-Gaia outputs include the same features
as VE-Ware but also include global comparisons and breakdowns of potential
energy types. The Climate Energy Index compliments the Climate and Building
metric tools released in the latest VE-Toolkit and VE Gaia products. These
automated tools analyze the climate data for the location, or analyze the
building data bringing relevant characteristics to the surface for evaluation
and determining design strategies. For more information on the Climate Energy
Index, visit http://www.iesve.com/Software/What-Analysis-When/Climate.

About IES

Integrated Environmental Solutions (IES) is an innovative company at the
forefront of the use and development of powerful software simulation tools which
help architects, engineers, facilities managers, and all those involved in the
development and management of buildings design and maintain truly sustainable
properties. IES was established in June 1994 and is headquartered in Glasgow,
Scotland, with offices in Dublin, Republic of Ireland; Boston and San Francisco,
USA and Melbourne, Australia. IES Consulting is the specialist international
environmental performance consultancy division of IES, its expert team of
consultants include some of the most experienced LEED, BREEAM, Green Star
Accredited Professionals and Accredited Energy Assessors, in the UK. IES`
services and products aid significantly in the provision of healthier and more
energy efficient built environments. For additional information, please visit
www.iesve.com.

Visit us at Greenbuild, Booth #1752

Vantage Communications for IES
Tory Klaubo Patrick, +1-202-558-9826
tpatrick@pr-vantage.com

Copyright Business Wire 2009