Validation of Autodesk Ecotect™ accuracy for thermal and daylighting simulations

Autodesk Ecotect™ 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™ for thermal and daylighting simulations of buildings and provide recommendations to the Architecture, Engineering and Construction community on application of Ecotect™. 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™. The validation results showed that Ecotect™ underestimated thermal loads in all the analyzed cases and overestimated illuminance levels in 98% of the analyzed cases. Therefore, these findings show that Ecotect™ cannot be used for accurate simulations of thermal loads and illuminance levels.