[Radiance-general] Using Radiance to Generate Lighting and Solar Surface Heat Gain Schedules for EnergyPlus

[Justin Shultz]

Hello Radiance community,

My work partner and I are attempting to run EnergyPlus simulations with 
integrated daylight and solar heat gain for a dynamic CFS. After some 
previous discussions it was believed that we would use Radiance for the 
daylight simulation and then use EnergyPlus' built in 
Construction:ComplexFenestrationState module to input the BSDF. The 
daylight would be plugged into the EnergyPlus building model through the 
lighting load schedule. And the ComplexFenestrationState would be 
dynamically changed (using the same control logic) with the EnergyPlus' 
energy management system (EMS).

Recently we found the presentation from the 2011 International Radiance 
Workshop by Andy McNeil, "Using Radiance to Generate Lighting and Solar 
Surface Heat Gain Schedules for EnergyPlus". The presentation appears to 
use a different method that is more integrated with Radiance but we're 
not sure how this is done.

genBSDF "change wavelength tag from visible to NIR":
How would one go about running genBSDF for NIR? I read somewhere that 
the material properties should be changed for NIR, but we're not sure 
how to do that. Is there a hidden function that can be added to genBSDF 
to run for NIR? Should the two XMLs be integrated or kept separate?

Creating Surface Heat Gain Schedule:
How would the radiance results be used to calculate the heat gain on 
each surface? How could this be used to generate a schedule that can be 
applied to EnergyPlus?

Using Schedules in EnergyPlus:
"EnergyPls code modified to allow schedule of surface heat gains" 
(modification by Thierry Nouidui and Brian Coffey). I was wondering if 
this has be implemented, if so how? I saw in the EnergyPlus EMS manual 
that the EMS system can be used to control exterior building variable, 
is this the same system?

Sorry for the question overload, I always try to keep it short but there 
is just so much I want to learn.

Thank you for your time,
Justin