Visualize Green

Although the objective of a Sankey diagram is to communicate without much explanation, I have received several comments and suggestions, that I thought explaining my rationale behind these diagrams will be worthwhile.

First of all, thank you everyone for expressing your support and for suggestions to improve these diagrams.

I will start explaining each component of the Predicted Energy Consumption diagram.

Color

Blue – Electricity – Electric blue is color of lightning and electricity is typically depicted using blue

Fuel – Red – Fuel, say natural gas has no color, but other types of fuels do. I chose Red, because it looks cool

Gray – Net Energy Consumption – In the US (and in many parts of the World), the most consumed fossil fuel is COAL. Symbolically, by showing how this Gray net energy consumption gets reduced by design, I am alluding to kill coal!

Green – Renewable energy is undoubtedly communicated with Green Color. Regardless of what source of renewable energy, I chose Green to depict renewable energy both offsetting fuel and electricity.

Components – Energy Demand

The items on the far left hand side of the diagram are called “End Uses” – in simple terms, the energy model predicts that energy will be consumed by various components within the building – anything that requires power to operate can be broadly categorized into these 10 items for any type of building. The only exception is, for industries, there will be another main component called PROCESS loads – say a meat processing industry – lot of process energy that are not directly used to condition the building.

When I started doing these diagrams, I was primarily focusing on Southwest part of the US, hence – not a lot of fuel usage other than for space heating and domestic hot water. I did a couple of projects for the Northwest and apparently, they use fuel for plug loads and pumps.

Consumption before renewables

– this is pretty obvious, but the notable point here is, it is sometimes hard for people to realize how much of their utility bill is due to electricity or fuel – the numbers and the colors clearly show that.

Consumption after renewables

– the main intention is to show how much of each source – electricity or fuel is offset by renewable energy – so the top green arrow represents renewable energy offsetting electricity – and the bottom shows that offsetting fuel.

Notes

It is also important to communicate city for climatic correlations and type of project along with square footage for scale. Year is important to communicate when was the consumption predicted.

Units

Last but not least, kBtu/sf/yr is becoming the universal (US) unit of communicating building energy consumption. This unit is called the EUI – Energy Use Intensity and since it is a simulation of how your building will perform, it is called PEUI – Predicted Energy Use Intenisty.

New – new – New

Energy Model Type – You may notice a small heading below the Predicted Energy Consumption Diagram title. It could be one of the three

1.       Comparison Model – this is to tell the audience that the energy simulation is used to compare two design scenarios. This option should be used for integrated design analysis to inform design

2.       Compliance Model – this is to tell the audience that the energy simulation is used to show compliance with an agency – LEED, Title 24 etc

3.       Prediction Model – this is to tell the audience that the energy simulation is used to show predicted energy usage of a building that is being constructed or operating

It is very important to classify PEUI with one of the above types to communicate to the end user, the purpose of these simulations.

What do you all think?