States that a building emulator/EMCS tester emulates a building and its mechanical systems in real time. The emulator/tester is connected to the energy management and control system (EMCS) in place of the EMCS's sensors and actuators. The EMCS then controls the simulated building as it would a real building, while the emulator/tester can be used to evaluate the performance of the EMCS. Describes two studies using a small office building to validate a second-generation emulator/tester developed by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology. The results obtained were compared using both simulation and emulation. Both studies showed good agreement between the simulation and emulation results. In addition, an exercise using the emulator/tester to tune a cooling-coil control loop was carried out using two different tuning methods. Also presents information on how the emulator/tester can be used for training, commissioning EMCS software and developing new control algorithms.

KEYWORDS: Computer programs, buildings, controls, building management, energy management, offices, comparing, performance, testing, USA, algorithms, training, commissioning, cooler batteries.