Trial / Demo
IES’ Johan Haeberle recently featured in Informations Entreprise to discuss the benefits of dynamic thermal simulation (DTS) for improving energy efficiency and thermal comfort. Below is an extract, with the full article available on the Informations Entreprise website, or in issue 197 of the magazine.
In the area of energy efficiency, France has a significant amount of work to do. On average, France allocates only 3 to 5% of construction costs to engineering, a figure that rises to 5 or 7% in the United Kingdom and Germany. The quality of these studies suffers as a result. "France has the great strength of possessing regulations that are more ambitious than those of many other countries. But often, people think, 'I've reached the mandatory regulatory level, I've done my job.' It's a useful safeguard, but ultimately prevents us from going even further."
While several types of services coexist on the market, IES focuses on quality, unlike companies that engage in greenwashing through poorly conducted studies due to insufficient budgets. "Engineering isn't a budgetary burden; in fact, it allows for substantial savings," emphasizes Johan Haeberle. "Beyond the minimum budget allocated to studies, every euro invested is generally recouped five or even ten times over the first 20 years of a building's life. But quality must be prioritized. Some clients tell me they can't compete with companies that conduct studies in a few hours with results that seem good but are completely disconnected from reality. This kind of practice not only produces substandard buildings but also destroys a virtuous industry by depriving serious players of projects and creating distrust in studies."
Dynamic thermal simulation can be carried out using IES’ Virtual Environment (VE) software. The VE is currently used by more than 15,000 sustainable design experts across the globe, and has been used to model over 1.5 million buildings. Tried and tested over three decades, our unrivalled APACHE simulation engine sits at the heart of the VE to provide accurate analysis across a range of performance metrics and decarbonisation options.
