INSTALL.md

For detailed information, please refer to the documentation.

Installation

Sinergym relies on several dependencies, the specifics of which vary by version.

The table below provides a summary of the dependencies versions supported by Sinergym across its releases:

Sinergym version	Ubuntu version	Python version	EnergyPlus version	Building model file
0.0	18.04 LTS	3.6	8.3.0	IDF
1.1.0	18.04 LTS	3.6	9.5.0	IDF
1.7.0	18.04 LTS	3.9	9.5.0	IDF
1.9.5	22.04 LTS	3.10.6	9.5.0	IDF
2.4.0	22.04 LTS	3.10.6	9.5.0	epJSON
2.5.0	22.04 LTS	3.10.6	23.1.0	epJSON
3.3.6	24.04 LTS	3.12.3	23.1.0	epJSON
3.5.8	24.04 LTS	3.12.3	24.1.0	epJSON

We recommend to always use the latest version of Sinergym that is supported by the container. This will help you to avoid the complexities of manual installation. However, if you prefer to manually install Sinergym on your computer, we provide the necessary documentation in the subsequent sections.

Docker container

We provide a Dockerfile to install all dependencies and prepare the image for running Sinergym. This is the recommended option, since it ensures that all dependencies and versions are correctly installed and configured.

This Dockerfile installs the compatible operating system, EnergyPlus, Python, and Sinergym, along with the necessary dependencies for its proper functioning.

If you have cloned the repository, run the following command:

$ docker build -t <tag_name> .

Sinergym has a set of optional dependencies that enhance its usage. These dependencies can be installed in the following way when building the image:

$ docker build -t <tag_name> --build-arg SINERGYM_EXTRAS="drl notebooks gcloud" .

These optional dependencies allow you to use stable-baselines3, wandb, notebooks and gcloud. For more information, please refer to the pyproject.toml file at the root of the repository ([tool.poetry.extras] section).

If you want to install all optional packages, use extras in the SINERGYM_EXTRAS argument.

📝 Note: the container can also be directly installed from the Docker Hub repository. It contains all the project's releases with secondary dependencies or lite versions.

Once the container image is ready, you can execute any command as follows:

$ docker run -it --rm <tag_name> <command>

By default, the command executed is python scripts/try_env.py, which is a minimal working example.

If you want to run a DRL experiment, for example, you can do it like this:

$ docker build -t example/sinergym:latest --build-arg SINERGYM_EXTRAS="drl" .
$ docker run -e WANDB_API_KEY=$WANDB_API_KEY -it --rm example/sinergym:latest python scripts/train/train_agent.py -conf scripts/train/train_agent_PPO.json

If the script you want to use requires a Weights and Biases account, remember to include the corresponding API token in a container environment variable.

It is also possible to keep an open session in the image. For more information, please refer to the official Docker documentation. This may help to run your own scripts in the container.

$ docker run -it <tag_name> /bin/bash

📝 Note: For Visual Studio Code users, simply open the root directory and click the Reopen in container pop-up button. This will automatically install all dependencies and enable you to run Sinergym in an isolated environment. For more details about this feature, refer to the VSCode Containers extension documentation.

Manual installation

If you prefer not to use containers and install it natively on your system, we provide some guidance on how to do it.

First, ensure that your system meets the previously specified software compatibility requirements. Without this, we cannot provide support or guarantees of functionality.

Configure Python Environment

Start by installing the desired version of Python and pip. It is recommended to set up a working environment for Python. Finally, install the necessary dependencies of Sinergym in that environment:

$ pip install sinergym

You can also install the optional packages by running:

$ pip install sinergym[extras]

To directly install Sinergym from the cloned repository, run:

$ poetry install --no-interaction --only main --extras <optional_extras>
# or
$ pip install .[<optional_extras>]

Now the correct Python version and the necessary modules to run Sinergym will be installed.

Let's now proceed with the installation of external software.

Install EnergyPlus

We have tested and confirmed compatibility with EnergyPlus version 24.1.0. Sinergym might not work with other non-tested versions.

Follow the instructions detailed here to install it in Linux (we only guarantee proper testing and support for Ubuntu).

After installation, the folder Energyplus-24-1-0 should appear in the selected location.

Include EnergyPlus Python API in Python path

Sinergym relies on the Energyplus Python API. The modules of this API are located in the EnergyPlus folder that was created in the previous step. You must add this installation path to the PYTHONPATH environment variable so that the interpreter can access these modules.

Develop in Sinergym

Whether you have chosen to use Docker or a manual installation, we offer facilities for developing and contributing to Sinergym.

• If you have used a container, Visual Studio Code will set up a development environment with all the necessary packages automatically configured, including documentation, tests, etc.

• If you have decided to use a container without Visual Studio Code, you can use the Dockerfile available in the .devcontainer folder instead of the one in the root of the repository. If you create your own Dockerfile, make sure to perform the following installation so that all development modules are available:

RUN poetry install --no-interaction

The default installation includes all development packages. To avoid this, you should specify --only main or --without <develop_groups>. The development groups can also be found in pyproject.toml.

If you have manually installed the project, you can install the development packages from poetry in the same way. Once the repository is cloned, run:

$ poetry install --no-interaction

The command is similar to the one shown in the manual installation section, but without specifying groups or extras, so that all development packages are installed. In this case, it is not possible to use pip because it does not include information about development dependencies (except those listed in extras).

📝 For more information about how poetry dependencies work, visit its official documentation.

Verify Installation

This project is automatically monitored using tests. To verify that Sinergym has been installed correctly, execute pytest tests/ -vv from the repository root directory. Tests dependencies should have been previously installed.

Each time the Sinergym repository is updated, the tests are automatically executed in a remote container built using the Dockerfile. This task is performed via Github actions (refer to the Github actions documentation section for additional details).

Cloud Computing

We provide some features to execute experiments in Google Cloud. For more information visit the Google Cloud integration section of the documentation.