NREL/OpenStudio — pull request #858 by kbenne (2014-02-21 16:29:09+00:00)
Title: 66146654 component setpoint operation

These changes primarily benefit water source heat pump systems. They add support for component setpoint plant operation and in the case of ground heat exchanger, uncontrolled plant component operation. It works like this. Normally and historically, plant components are divided into heating and cooling components and during translation to E+ the appropriate plant operation heating or cooling load control scheme is created automatically. Now that is still the case except in two alternative scenarios. First there is a new category of component, uncontrolled, that results in a uncontrolled plant operation scheme. Currently the only plant component that results in "uncontrolled" is ground heat exchanger vertical. Second, and most importantly, this pull request adds support for component setpoint operation. If there is a setpoint manager immediately after a plant component, OpenStudio will interpret the intent of the user is for setpoint base operation and therefore a component setpoint operation scheme will be setup for that component. All of these operation schemes can be used together. Some components can have setpoint and follow the component setpoint operation, while the ground HX will always be uncontrolled, while still other components (without set points) can follow the typical heating/cooling load based scheme.

@mleachNREL @asparke2 @axelstudios @DavidGoldwasser I'm not sure who is best to review this so I have left it unassigned. I hope that one of you can take a look and then merge.