Oct. 24, 2014: EnergyPlus Software Rewritten in New Computer Language for Better Performance
Building Energy Modeling Software Is Brought Up to Date
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced that its EnergyPlus™ software, which models whole-building energy and water use, has been rewritten in the C++ programming language for improved performance. EnergyPlus lets users model the effects of design and operation alternatives — including HVAC system changes — on building energy performance.
For the first 17 years of its existence, EnergyPlus was written in the FORTRAN programming language. Now, DOE is releasing EnergyPlus 8.2.0, the first version written in C++. More modern than FORTRAN, C++ has better built-in features for software development, testing, and maintenance. It also has a larger ecosystem of software libraries and development tools, better access to new high-performance hardware, and a significantly larger developer community. DOE believes that the language change will help spur the evolution of EnergyPlus and its integration into additional applications and services.