🔥 Trano: Automated Building Energy Simulation (BES) Model Generation 🚀

📖 Full Documentation: 👉 Trano Docs

Trano is a Python package that generates building energy simulation (BES, building energy modelling) models in Modelica from a simple description of the building in YAML, JSON or RDF: envelope, HVAC systems and their controls, and electrical systems. The generated models are simulated with OpenModelica (or Dymola), validated against ASHRAE 140 (BESTEST), and, with the FastSmoothBuildings library, translated to CasADi for model predictive control (MPC). Unlike tools that directly convert BIM to BES, Trano introduces an intermediate, library-independent description, paving the way for seamless integration with IFC translators.

Trano is Modelica library agnostic but is natively designed to work with:
✅ Validated detailed Modelica libraries (e.g., Buildings, IDEAS,...)
✅ Reduced-order models (e.g., AIXLIB, ISO13790,...)
✅ Models for optimal control (FastSmoothBuildings: close to Buildings, closed loop or for optimal control, translated to CasADi)
✅ your library...

🧪 Supported libraries and validation

The HVAC components (radiators, valves, pumps, boilers, heat pumps, air handling units) come from the Buildings library for every Modelica library. The Modelica name of every parameter in every library is listed in the parameter reference.

The models trano generates are validated against ASHRAE Standard 140 (BESTEST): the 27 single-zone cases are simulated for a year with every library and compared with the acceptance limits of the standard and the spread of the reference programs. Buildings, IDEAS and FastSmoothBuildings (the smooth library that exports to CasADi for MPC) pass every case (see the validation results and the walk through the cases); the two simplified zones are reported for information. Simulations run in the official OpenModelica image. The library FastSmoothBuildings, its study against Buildings and its analysis as an MPC model live in its own repository (documentation).

The systems are validated too: the heat pumps (COP against their EN 14511 table, electricity, cycling), the gas boilers (efficiency, gas, cycling), the valves and pumps, and the ventilation units (supply air temperature, recovered heat, fan electricity) are simulated one at a time on a study zone and on combined houses with the three libraries, and every KPI is held to a band with its physical reasoning (validation/systems, results).

✨ Key Features

🛠️ Built for Open-Source BES

• Designed with widespread adoption in mind.
• Optimized for OpenModelica, but also compatible with Dymola.

🔥 Full Thermal & Electrical Modeling

• Generates both thermal and electrical models.
• Supports building envelope, systems, and electricity.
• Models:
  • Envelope (geometry & materials) 🏢
  • HVAC systems (emission, hydronic distribution, boilers) ❄️🔥
  • Electrical components (PV systems, electrical loads) ⚡

🎨 Easy to Use & Modify

• Generates graphical representations of components & connections 🎭.
• Fully modular design for seamless modifications:
  • Envelope 🏠
  • Emission 💨
  • Hydronic Distribution 🚰
  • Production & Electricity ⚡

🧩 Extensible Component Variants

Every Trano component (radiator, space, control, AHU, boiler, ...) is selected by a variant name — switching variant: default to variant: ideal swaps the underlying Modelica model. You can also drop your own variant YAML files into any folder and load them via the CLI (--variants-folder), the Python API (register_variants_folder), or the TRANO_VARIANTS_PATH environment variable.

📚 Tutorial: Creating and using component variants

🎛️ Models for optimal control

• FastSmoothBuildings library: trano create-model house.yaml FastSmoothBuildings generates a model close to Buildings (layered walls, windows with their angular optics, long-wave and solar exchanges in the rooms, radiators, valves, boilers, heat pumps, ventilation with heat recovery, PV) that rumoca translates to a CasADi ODE. FastSmoothBuildings simulates the building in closed loop with its controllers and pressure-driven water circuits; FastSmoothBuildingsMPC leaves the controllers out, so that trano_optimization (the trano-optimization package, installed next to trano) decides the controls: it simulates the model, estimates its state and solves optimal control problems with IPOPT. In closed loop, FastSmoothBuildings follows Buildings within 0.05–0.39 K on the zone temperatures (0.05–0.25 K with controlled heating) (see the FastSmoothBuildings reference).

🚀 With Trano, creating and modifying detailed BES models has never been easier!

📖 Full Documentation: 👉 Trano Docs

📄 License

Trano is released under the Apache License 2.0. Releases up to and including 0.56.0 were published under the LGPL-3.0-or-later.