EINSTEIN is a GENIUS
EINSTEIN thinks for You:
EINSTEIN uses the following concepts:
Industry
An industry is the object under study: a certain production site of a company.
The characteristic data of an industry are the parameters considered as fixed, not subject to optimization, such as:
The data of the industry are fed into the EINSTEIN tool via the Questionnaire (tool-tree Einstein-> Edit Industry Data)
Project
A project is a study on a given industry.
There can be several projects on the same industry, e.g.
All projects are (or can be) complete energy audits on their own, and in this sense independent; but: one (e.g. the more detailed one) can build on the experience from another.
How to handle projects in EINSTEIN ?
Projects can be either or created from scratch (Menu File->New project), copied from existing ones (Menu File->Open project->Copy project) or imported from external data files (Menu File->Import project).
By copying a project, the full set of information contained in this project is copied, including the alternative proposals already defined in the project and the present state of processing.
Project handling options can also be accessed via the tool-tree Einstein->Edit Industry Data.
The currently selected project is displayed on the Status-Bar of the main window.
Alternative
An alternative is a full proposal for the layout of the production site, including:
In one project there may be several alternatives that can be compared, e.g. proposals for a small, a medium and a large biomass boiler.
The present state is considered as a special alternative:
| Alternative No. | Description |
| -1 | present state: raw data that could be gathered (data set can be uncomplete and even contradictory) |
| 0 | present state: REFERENCE CASE (complete and consistent data set of the industry; may include data estimates carried out by the auditor or default values and correlations used by the tool) |
| 1 ... N | Alternative proposals for the layout of the production site |
EINSTEIN allows for different levels of detail of analysis
Quick & dirty fast assessment
Things that can be done on the run, entering few data (“10%” of basic questionnaire) and few mouse clicks => Can give a first orientation of what might be possible / interesting
Standard level of detail
Deepness of analysis that can be carried out with an amount of data corresponding to the basic questionnaire
Detailed analysis
Full potential of analysis possible with the tool, incl. data in detailed annexes to questionnaire
EINSTEIN allows for different levels of user interaction
Interactive mode
All parameters can be changed manually by the user. The tool helps, but does not decide on its own
Semi-automatic mode
Data analysis and design mainly in an automatic way User interaction is asked only for critical decisions Sometimes a subset of options is preselected automatically, allowing the user to take the final selection manually
Automatic mode
Data analysis and design completely automatic User interaction only in case of emergency (= when reasonable automatic estimates or default decisions are impossible)
All what EINSTEIN knows is within databases
Equipment and sub-system data bases
Technical data (nominal powers, efficiencies, …) Economic data (investment cost, O&M costs)
Knowledge data bases
Project data bases
The information on the projects itself EINSTEIN learns from previous experience !! EINSTEIN learns from other EINSTEIN’s -> information can be shared
Auditor data base
EINSTEIN has an address book of those who fed him with information. So in the case of doubts he can ask again …
EINSTEIN is curious: he wants to know everything about the industry:
Quick & dirty fast-check questionnaire (paper format only) -> for the lazy ones, and those who are always in a hurry …
Basic questionnaire: about 8 – 10 pages
contains all the basic information necessary and sufficient for carrying out a complete EINSTEIN audit at standard level
Detailed annexes:
optional complements that allow for a deeper analyisis (such as detailed process time schedules, …)
EINSTEIN’s basic questionnaire is available in the following formats:
You don’t have to tell him everything one by one ... EINSTEIN is intelligent. He has lot’s of experience, combined with intuition and imagination.
If once You don’t know what to propose to some industry, EINSTEIN has surely ideas for You:
EINSTEIN has a critical mind. And he helps you find the best solution among several good ones.
EINSTEIN License
The base version of EINSTEIN is available as free and open source software project under GNU/GPL license Version 3 by energyXperts.NET (E4-Experts GmbH, Berlin, Germany).
Since Version 2.3, there is a complementary commercial version EINSTEIN Plus which contains some additional features. EINSTEIN Plus is distributed as a means for fund-raising in order to assure the maintenance and continuity of development.
The free version of EINSTEIN is hosted at www.sourceforge.net/projects/einstein
Please ask and motivate for both collaborations to development and for utilisation of EINSTEIN from inside and outside the EINSTEIN consortium (e.g. student’s projects, development of complements, …)
EINSTEIN is written entirely using open source components
EINSTEIN is platform independent
Can run on Linux, Unix, Windows, MacIntosh, etc.
Report your bugs
Make us suggestions for improvements. Write us at info@energyxperts.net or subscribe and write to the EINSTEIN user forum at
Modify or contribute own modules and databases:
The source code of EINSTEIN base version is available as a Git repository. Git versioning for Einstein is installed at Einstein site in Sourceforge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/einstein
On the left menu there is an option to browse Git. Go to the ‘trunk’ folder to see the files tree.
For Windows users there is a very good Git package called TortoiseGit. It is very nicely integrated with the window manager. Once installed Tortoise Git, for the inital cloning, all you have to do is:
- Create an empty folder for the einstein files.
- Click on the folder with the right button. A contextual menu will appear, and you choose ‘Git clone’.
You will be asked for the url, which is:
git://einstein.git.sourceforge.net/gitroot/einstein/einstein
and your folder will be populated with the last stable release version of the EINSTEIN source files. To follow the current development you can checkout the branches ‘development’ for the current development versions or ‘testing’ for a more stable version that will match more closely the release versions.
- Subsequently you have to use ‘pull’ to load any modifications in the repository since your last update.
- For those that will be updating files: when you modify any file in the git-controlled folder, a mark will appear on the folder icon, to remind you that. You can then commit the modified file to your local repository, or you can ‘revert’ to the previous state. Please understand that the folder is managed by TortoiseGit, and it behaves differently from other folders in your equipment. All these actions are made through right clicking on the folder or on one of the files and selecting options.
Write us at info@energyxperts.net or subscribe and write to the EINSTEIN developers forum at
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/einstein-developers
Within the default database in EINSTEIN you can find some example projects. See Chapter 4 of the EINSTEIN Guide for Thermal Energy Audits for the description of these examples.
EINSTEIN Guide 41
Example of an industry that has only one thermal process: a washing process consuming hot water at 80 ºC Use the example version EINSTEIN Guide 41.1 Preliminary Step for starting with the example. The other versions represent the same project at intermediate stages of the work with the example.
EINSTEIN Guide 42
Example of an industry with 3 different thermal processes This example helps you to try out and understand the data entry and consistency checking in EINSTEIN
EINSTEIN Guide 43 Base Case
Example of an industrial dairy Objective: learn to use the heat recovery module (pinch analysis, HX Network optimisation)
CAUTION: best do not work directly within the example projects in order to keep them in the original state. Make your first own steps on a COPY!
How to load an example project ? (see also the video tutorial “How to Load a Project” )
- enter in the menu Project -> Open
- select any project by single clicking on it (e.g. EINSTEIN Guide 41.1 Preliminary Step)
- right-click (click with right mouse button) and select “copy”.
- Give a new name and description to the copy, and press OK. The copy of the project will appear in the list of projects.
- Close the list of projects by pressing OK again.
After this the the new project will appear automatically as selected on the status bar of the tool.
You can follow this video tutorial “First Project from Scratch” in order to create your first project from scratch. The resulting project corresponds to the example EINSTEIN Guide 41.1 Preliminary Step.
Make your copy of the example project “EINSTEIN Guide 41.1 Preliminary Step” as described above. Select the tree item “Assisted Design” -> “Auto Pilot”
A show case for demonstration of the EINSTEIN functionality has been built around one of the i-ThERM pilot projects for heat to power conversion.
In the show case “DemoTFC” you can see - and try out by yourself - some of the most relevant functionalities of EINSTEIN.
If you want to try out by yourself download and unzip the following materials on your computer and follow the instructions indicated in the description of the show case:
Materials (example projects and data files) for the show case
Video Tutorials