CEA Psychrometric
Site Evaluator.
Climate capability. Clearer investments.
Start with the weather.
Compare what your equipment can change.
Keep the assumptions in view.
Set the climate context
The public ZIP list has no time zone column, so the tool reads one from its own ZIP time zone table and asks you to confirm it. Sites near a state or county line are the ones worth checking, because that is where zone boundaries run.
Local energy context
Every scenario in a comparison uses the same ZIP, coordinates, time zone, weather period and customer type, including any you import. Only the electricity pricing mode and the manual prices stay per scenario. One ZIP can sit across more than one utility territory, so the providers listed are possibilities rather than a confirmed supplier. A state average price is not your tariff, and a regional generation mix is not the electricity your own supplier sells you.
Historical price context
Regional generation mix
Review outdoor-air assumptions
Confirm each scenario’s minimum, maximum and combined supply / exhaust fan specific power below. Changing these values or their evidence basis clears that scenario’s review.
Assumption-based statistical screening. Coarse component models, not a calibrated greenhouse digital twin or a guarantee of indoor conditions.
A clear comparison starts
with a real weather record.
Review the facility and crop assumptions, confirm outdoor air under Run all scenarios, then run the baseline. Add a strategy to see its change in target hours and period operating cost.
Nothing is calculated until you run a scenario.
Model assumptions and source coverage
Operating modes by month
Mode hours, table view
Equipment runtime
When ventilation dries the zone
Where the load comes from
Monthly heat gains from the sun, the lights, the building skin, leakage, outdoor air, the fans and the crop, set against the water the crop evaporates, counted as the heat that water carries. The sensible heat ratio below tells you whether ordinary cooling with reheat suits this load, or whether the moisture is better removed on its own. These are model balance terms, not measurements.
Monthly decomposition, table view
When the zone can stay closed
Where the gaps occur
Local day across, hour of the day down. Every cell carries a shape as well as a colour, so it reads without relying on colour. Select a cell to inspect that hour. The UTC label keeps the two repeated hours apart on the night the clocks go back.
Day by hour, table view
Temperature & moisture
Air temperature plotted against dew point. This is a simple two-axis view, not a full psychrometric chart. It shows outdoor conditions and the air leaving the evaporative pad.
Daily light integral
Daylight plus whatever the fixtures add. The dashed line is the daily light target you set. A partial day proves nothing about a whole one.
Hourly inspector
More control, at what cost?
Every strategy is scored against the same historical record. Capital cost and running cost are kept apart and never added together. Added target hours are counted against the first scenario. They are not crop revenue and not an annual return.
Median year, worst year, spread
The same scenarios run against one weather year each. You get the middle year, the worst, the best, the gap between worst and best, and a trend line once five or more years are selected. Ten years of modelled weather tells you how much the answer moves between years. It is not a forecast.
Which climate gives the most for free?
For each site: the hours when outside air alone could have done the cooling, the hours when an evaporative pad would genuinely work, which limit binds hardest, the cheapest strategy still worth considering, and how bad the worst year gets. Extra sites are priced at your manual scenario prices, not at their own local rates.
Keep the evidence with the result.
Your inputs, a record of where every source came from, and the hour-by-hour output. The design-basis brief pulls out the peak hours, the air and water requirements and the verdict, written for the engineer who will do the real design.
Know what this screen can tell you
Weather is evidence.
NASA POWER is a gridded reconstruction. Station mode pairs observed meteorology with separately sourced solar. Missing intervals remain visible, not replaced with favorable conditions.
Research & source register ↗Equipment is an assumption.
Constant component capacities, efficiencies and simplified controls compare strategies. Crop evaporation, uniform air, glazing and heat recovery need site-specific review. These are not sizing or yield guarantees.
Evidence tiers & evaluation gates ↗Technology, not brand rankings.
Desiccant and hybrid strategies are generic, editable screens. Blue Frontier and AGronomic IQ are technology references only. No validated product maps or manufacturer results are implied.
Energy data provenance ↗Learn the
model.
Ten sections, in order. Each one states the concept, the arithmetic behind it, a number measured in this repository, and the caveat that travels with it.
Concept, then relationship.
Then a measured number.
Then what it cannot prove.
The curriculum
Each section has a control that jumps to the Analyze view and highlights the panel where the idea lives. Sections marked "after a run" point at panels that do not exist until you have run a scenario, and each one tells you what to run first. Nothing on this page is computed here: the curriculum quotes figures already published in this repository, and the regional section reads docs/regional-study.json at load.
Evidence tier: assumption-based component screening. Ten observed weather years are ten actual years, not a sample from a stationary distribution: no spread on this page is a forecast, a confidence interval or a design year.