REopt Customization

Customization

Advanced developers may choose to customize the URBANopt REopt Gem. For example, more attributes are returned from the REopt API and saved to disk than currently can be recorded in a Feature or Scenario Report. In these cases, developers will want to clone the URBANopt REopt Gem and possibly the URBANopt Reporting Gem and make modifications to these codebases. Such changes can be made accessible through CLI commands (installed from a cloned URBANopt CLI repo) or a local project. See Developer Resources for more information about setting up local gems and installing them through modifications to your project’s Gemfile.

Adding additional REopt Responses to your Feature and Scenario Reports

To include additional REopt API responses to your Feature and Scenario Reports follow the steps we outline below for adding optimal lifecycle costs from a REopt API response to Feature and Scenario Reports.

We’ll need to update the Feature and Scenario Report schema to allow for new attributes, so clone URBANopt Reporting Gem to your local machine.
```
$ git clone https://github.com/urbanopt/urbanopt-reporting-gem
```
Later we’ll need to also update the URBANopt REopt Gem to parse these additional attributes from the REopt API response, so clone this now in the same directory as the URBANopt Scenario Gem repository with:
```
$ git clone https://github.com/urbanopt/urbanopt-reopt-gem
```

Let’s first update the URBANopt Reporting Gem. The distributed_generation schema used by Feature and Scenario Reports is defined in this repository and needs to handle new attributes.

We’ll add lcc_us_dollars here as an example.

First, open urbanopt-reporting-gem/lib/urbanopt/reporting/default_reports/distributed_generation.rb

Next, in the DistributedGeneration class add a new attribute accessor:

module URBANopt
    module Reporting
      module DefaultReports
      ##
      # Onsite distributed generation system (i.e. SolarPV, Wind, Storage, Generator) design attributes and financial metrics.
      ##
      class DistributedGeneration
        ##
        # _Float_ - Lifecycle costs for the complete distributed generation system in US Dollars
        #
        attr_accessor :lcc_us_dollars

Then, within the initialize function parse the attribute when the object is instantiated:

        def initialize(hash = {})
          hash.delete_if { |k, v| v.nil? }
          @lcc_us_dollars = hash[:lcc_us_dollars]

Also, within the to_hash function, make sure the attribute will be exported when the report is saved:

        def to_hash
          result = {}
          result[:lcc_us_dollars] = @lcc_us_dollars if @lcc_us_dollars

Finally, within the merge_distributed_generation function, make sure the attribute will be added when two reports are combined:

        def self.merge_distributed_generation(existing_dgen, new_dgen)
           existing_dgen.lcc_us_dollars = add_values(existing_dgen.lcc_us_dollars, new_dgen.lcc_us_dollars)

You’re now all set updating the distributed_generation schema.

Let’s next update URBANopt REopt Gem to load lifecycle costs from the REopt API responses into the Feature and Scenario Report distributed_generation schema’s lcc_us_dollars attribute.

First, in urbanopt-reopt-gem/Gemfile make sure that the urbanopt-reporting gem is loaded as follows:
```
    gem 'urbanopt-reporting', path: '../urbanopt-reporting-gem'
```
This will ensure that the urbanopt-sceanrio gem that the urbanopt-reopt gem uses includes the schema we just modified.

Note: You can alternatively specify a gem from a branch on github as follows:
```
    gem 'urbanopt-reporting', github: '<repo address>', branch: '<branch name>''
```
Next, in urbanopt-reopt-gem/lib/reopt/feature_report_adapter.rb in the update_feature_report function, parse the REopt API response:
```
    # Update distributed generation sizing and financials
    feature_report.distributed_generation.lcc_us_dollars = reopt_output['outputs']['Scenario']['Site']['Financial']['lcc_us_dollars'] || 0
```
For an example of a REopt API response refer to this file. Also, the REopt API output schema is documented here.

Finally, in urbanopt-reopt-gem/lib/reopt/scenario_report_adapter.rb in the update_scenario_report function, parse the lifecycle cost from the REopt API response:
```
    # Update distributed generation sizing and financials
    scenario_report.distributed_generation.lcc_us_dollars = reopt_output['outputs']['Scenario']['Site']['Financial']['lcc_us_dollars'] || 0
```
You are now ready to navigate to the urbanopt-reopt-gem folder and run:
```
$ bundle install
$ bundle update
```
Now, when you reference this modified urbanopt-reopt implementation you can access the lifecycle costs from feature_report.distributed_generation.lcc_us_dollars or scenario_report.distributed_generation.lcc_us_dollars. The lifecycle costs will also be included when a Feature or Scenario Report is saved.