User Interfaces

The CEA code exposes multiple interfaces as an API:

  • CLI (Command Line Interface) - each module in the CEA implements a CLI for calling it from the command line.

  • euler - a set of scripts for running the CEA sensitivity analysis on the ETH Euler cluster is provided in the folder euler and can be used as a starting point for running the analysis on similar clusters and / or linux machines.

The Command Line Interface

The most portable way to interact with the CEA is via the CLI. Type the following command in your shell to see the list of commands available:

> cea --help
usage: cea SCRIPT [OPTIONS]
       to run a specific script
usage: cea --help SCRIPT
       to get additional help specific to a script

SCRIPT can be one of: benchmark-graphs, compile, data-helper,
    dbf-to-excel, demand, demand-graphs, embodied-energy, emissions,
    excel-to-dbf, extract-reference-case, install-toolbox,
    latitude, list-demand-graphs-fields, locate, longitude, mobility,
    operation-costs, photovoltaic, photovoltaic-thermal, read-config, read-config-section,
    retrofit-potential, scenario-plots, sensitivity-demand-analyze,
    sensitivity-demand-samples, sensitivity-demand-simulate,
    solar-collector, test, weather-files, weather-path, write-config

All scripts use the configuration file as the default source of parameters. See the Configuration File Details for information on the configuration file.

The parameters in the configuration file relevant to a script can be overridden. To see which parameters are used by a certain script, use the syntax cea --help SCRIPT:

> cea --help data-helper

building properties algorithm

OPTIONS for data-helper:
--scenario: C:/reference-case-open/baseline
    Path to the scenario to run
--archetypes: ['comfort', 'architecture', 'HVAC', 'internal-loads']
    List of archetypes to process

This displays some documentation on the script as well as a list of parameters, their default values and a description of the parameter. Using this information, the data-helper script can be run like this:

> cea data-helper --scenario C:/reference-case-open/scenario1 --archetypes HVAC

Note

All options are optional and have default values as defined in the configuration file!