Energy Plus Error

Hi all,

I’m trying to run an energy simulation but I’m getting an error.

Something to do with a shading calc failing. It’s all a bit beyond my skills to understand.

Anyway, see the attached image for more details.

I’m having the exact same problem. As far as my (limited) understanding goes, this is caused by Honeybee writing EnergyPlus files in v9.0 whereas the EnergyPlus engine you would have is v9.3. Energyplus is not able to process this older file. This seems like a bug in the software.

Whether the above analysis is true or not, I have found a workaround. Basically it involves manually using EP v9.0 to run the simulation, outside grasshopper, and then getting Grasshopper to read that result.

  1. Uninstall energyplus v 9.3, Install energy plus v9.0.
  2. Disconnect the boolean toggle from “run EnergyPlus” in your screenshot.
  3. Go the location where the idf file is written.
  4. Open the idf file using EnergyPlus v9.0. Click Simulate.
    5.In your grasshopper script use a panel to input the file name to the readEP component. For me this reads “c:\ladybug\unnamed\EnergyPlus\unnamed.csv”

Ive just started using the software, but hope it helps. Let me know if you find a better solution

Thanks Ashwin!

This totally works but is a huge pain in the butt. Surely we’re not the only people to have come across this issue. Seems like the HB energy plus simulator is outputting a EPv9.0 file and then requesting an EP9.3 file.

True, its inconvenient… most of the other users are probably using older versions of the programs though, so they may not have run into this. See you around then.

Greetings from Ecuador!, I’m new to hb and was following @chris tutorials but I got stuck in this same problem. I hope there is some fix in this bug soon so beginners like me can keep learning this great tool. Thanks!

Also, thanks a lot @chris for your great tutorials!

Hello @Ashiwin_A, thanks for sharing the solution that worked for you. I tried the same with a file from a tutorial but I got an error when runing the simulation in energy plus v9.0. Would it be possible for you to give it a check to my model, please? I’m absolutely new to hb and this issue is something way beyond my knowledge. Thanks a lot.


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hi every one
I’ve just started learning honeybee an at first my experience I faced with this error
can any one help me?