Validation of Autodesk Ecotect™ accuracy for thermal and daylighting simulations

Autodesk Ecotect TM is an environmental analysis software which according to the U.S. Department of Energy, has not been validated yet. Therefore, the objectives of this research were to validate accuracy of Ecotect TM for thermal and daylighting simulations of buildings and provide recommendations to the Architecture, Engineering and Construction community on application of Ecotect TM . Analysis of thermal performance of an institutional building was conducted for one year while the daylighting performance was studied from January to September. The thermal loads and illuminance levels of the building were first measured in the field. The field measurements were then compared to the simulated thermal loads and illuminance levels obtained by Ecotect TM . The validation results showed that Ecotect TM underestimated thermal loads in all the analyzed cases and overestimated illuminance levels in 98% of the analyzed cases. Therefore, these findings show that Ecotect TM cannot be used for accurate simulations of thermal loads and illuminance levels.