The Australian Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) establishes the protocols and
validates and standardises software that can be utilised by the design-construction industry for the
purposes of determining design compliance with the energy efficiency regulations of the National
Construction Code. All software accredited under this national scheme calculates the heat flows into
and out of the building envelope on an hourly basis to determine the space heating and cooling loads
for each zone of the house. All software uses Reference Meteorological Year (RMY) climate files
based on at least 25 years of meteorological data (air temperature, humidity, solar radiation, wind
speed and direction) for each climate zone. All software requires the input of detailed spatial and
architectural data as well as construction material and components data, however the occupancy