Ladybug Tools has announced new Dragonfly district thermal system simulation workflows, developed through several years of collaboration with teams at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, now the National Lab of the Rockies, around the URBANopt SDK. The new Dragonfly District Thermal components are aimed at feasibility studies for fourth- and fifth-generation district energy systems.
The workflows set up OpenStudio/EnergyPlus models that can estimate energy savings for different district system configurations, forecast average loop temperatures, and support ground heat exchanger sizing for fifth-generation systems where land constraints matter. The update includes components for fourth-generation systems with heating and cooling plants, heat recovery chillers sized against simultaneous heating and cooling load overlap, fifth-generation ambient loop systems that move waste heat between buildings, and autosizing workflows for ground heat exchangers.
The components are available through the latest Pollination Grasshopper/Rhino plugins installer or the LB Versioner. Ladybug Tools has also published a tutorial playlist and sample files in the dragonfly-grasshopper repository, with the district system samples using the des_ prefix.