Overview

The Bentley Hevacomp PartL program does not perform the PartL/SBEM calculation.

Method

The processes involved in the creation of Energy Performance Certificates and Part L Compliance documents originate from the European Performance of Buildings Directive, which set out requirements in relation to measuring energy usage in buildings.

To achieve this, the Department of Communities and Local Government devised the National Calculation Methodology and BRE were entrusted with developing suitable software.

"The NCM allows the actual calculation to be carried out either by an approved simulation software or by a simplified tool based on a set of CEN standards.

That tool has been developed for DCLG by BRE and is called SBEM - Simplified Building Energy Model"

Bentley Hevacomp's PartL program is an interface into the SBEM calculation engine. The PartL program generates a correctly formatted input file that is passed into the SBEM calculation engine. As such, Bentley Hevacomp do no have access to source code or the calculation methods used by the SBEM calculation engine.

Note that it is important for the user to consult the appropriate technical manuals for the most up to date information.

Useful links:

• The BRE website
• The 2006 SBEM technical manual (PDF)
• The 2010 SBEM technical manual (PDF)
• The 2014 SBEM technical manual (ZIP)