The energy use of commercial building operations is a significant contributor to the total global energy demand, and lighting is one of the largest end uses of electricity in commercial buildings. Convention Centers as commercial buildings are examples of big energy consumers, and they present a unique opportunity to showcase benefits of green building techniques due to their large size and broad range of visitors; however, the individual nature of convention centers makes it challenging to find design improvements which will be helpful in general for many convention centers. One exception to this rule of individuality is the presence of public assembly rooms, which are ubiquitous in nature and are used heavily. Traditionally, public assembly rooms are fully enclosed to allow for full control of illumination levels with artificial lighting, particularly fluorescent light. This represents a missing opportunity to utilize daylight or energy efficient artificial light to reduce energy use while enhancing human visual comfort. The objective of this research is to analyze the potential impact of the use of daylight in public assembly rooms. We present the results of a set of computer simulations performed using IES VE software. The simulations are performed as an iterative process, using as base case a north-facing public assembly room in the Tucson Convention Center, and progressively updating the lighting scheme using the software to analyze the illuminance levels for each case. The results are used to propose a lighting scheme for the north-facing public assembly room which uses 100% daylight to achieve a uniform level of illumination and meets the compliance of illumination requirements for public assembly rooms.

Energy usage deriving from human activities is increasing day by day acting against the quality of the environment and the sustainable use of natural resources. The major impact of these actions is reflected on the quality of daily life. In order to face the challenge of preserving an acceptable balance between human needs and environmental status, the combination of proper design and energy simulation of buildings is the key towards smarter and more sustainable solutions. Solutions that covers a respectable percentage of the current domestic energy needs without further environmental foot printing. In the scope of this project, an existing single-family house in Southern Greece (Heraklion, Crete) is modeled using Revit ® Architecture software and then is simulated with IES® VE (plug-in) in order to give the level of energy intensity. The energy model used is fully harmonized with the new rules set by the "National Regulation for Energy Performance of Buildings - (K.En.A.K)" as it was put in force from October 2010 and onwards, and fully complies with the European Standards (EN ISO) published for the various tasks of building`s thermal performance. The structure and contents presented in this report are in full compliance with the technical directives [31, 32, 33] published by the Technical Chamber of Greece, in favour of the complex task of "Energy Certification of Buildings". The most significant capabilities of sophisticated software tools, like Revit® Architecture, IES® VE, Polysun® and PVsyst®, in favour of sustainable building design and simulation are shown throughout the whole report. Moreover, their valuable contribution is highly acknowledged by the engineers encountered with the task of studying the energy performance of existing or newly constructed buildings in Greece and issuing, the mandatory by law, "Energy Performance Certificates".

A Post-Occupancy Energy Analysis of the Gwinnett Environmental and Heritage Center conducted with the view of recommending optimizations that result in energy savings.