Analysis Tools
Running simulations in the early stages of your design process provides feedback that can inform many of your decisions. These decisions can greatly affect the way your building performs: How will my building's performance change if I rotate it by 30 degrees on the site? What if I add another set of windows on the south elevation? Third-party energy analysis applications can help you answer these questions, and the ones listed below have developed plugins for Google SketchUp.
IES VE SketchUp Plugin
The IES VE SketchUp plug-in (which is available for Windows users) is a building performance analysis plugin for SketchUp developed by IES (Integrated Environmental Solutions). The SketchUp plugin works within SketchUp as a toolbar and then connects to IES's tools: IES VE-Ware (free), IES VE-Toolkits, and the full "Virtual Environment".
The plugin allows you to assign important sustainable design information like location, building and room type, construction types and HVAC systems to their SketchUp model and then import it directly into their chosen IES analysis tool, without having to re-build any geometry.
Watch the YouTube video overview and download the IES 3D Warehouse models to get started.
EnergyPlus OpenStudio Plugin
EnergyPlus is a building energy simulation software created and maintained by the U.S. Department of Energy. It models heating, cooling, lighting, ventilation and other energy flows in buildings.
The OpenStudio Plugin (which is available for Windows and Mac users), developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, adds the building energy simulation capabilities of EnergyPlus to the SketchUp environment. OpenStudio is a free plugin that allows users to create building geometry from scratch, open and edit existing EnergyPlus input files, or run EnergyPlus and view the results without leaving SketchUp. Currently, OpenStudio is not a full-featured interface for EnergyPlus, so it requires some expertise using EnergyPlus to develop a complete building model.
Greenspace Research's Demeter Plugin
Demeter (which is available for Windows and Mac users) is a plugin for SketchUp developed by Greenspace Research, a commercial division of Lews Castle College in Scotland. The plugin allows you to perform an energy analysis on a SketchUp design by adding attributes to the geometry and then connecting it to Green Building Studio's web service, or other analysis applications that import gbXML. With the plugin, SketchUp is able to both import and export gbXML files.