oemof/oemof-solph

oemof.solph

A model generator for energy system modelling and optimisation (LP/MILP)

Introduction

The oemof.solph package is part of the Open energy modelling framework (oemof). This an organisational framework to bundle tools for energy (system) modelling. oemof-solph is a model generator for energy system modelling and optimisation.

The oemof.solph package is very often called just oemof as it was part of the oemof meta package. Now you need to install oemof.solph instead of oemof, but everything else is still the same. (Note: Since the oemof package refers to legacy versions before v0.4, it is not possible to install both, oemof and oemof.solph, at the same time. Just use pip install oemof.solph.)

Everybody is welcome to use and/or develop oemof.solph. Read our contribution section.

Contribution is already possible on a low level by simply fixing typos in oemof's documentation or rephrasing sections which are unclear. If you want to support us that way please fork the oemof repository to your own github account and make changes as described in the github guidelines

If you have questions regarding the use of oemof you can visit the forum at openmod-initiative.org and open a new thread if your questions hasn't been already answered.

Keep in touch! - You can become a watcher at our github site, but this will bring you quite a few mails and might be more interesting for developers. If you just want to get the latest news, like when is the next oemof meeting, you can follow our news-blog at oemof.org.

Documentation

The oemof.solph documentation is powered by readthedocs. Use the project site of oemof.solph to choose the version of the documentation. Go to the download page to download different versions and formats (pdf, html, epub) of the documentation.

Installation

If you have a working Python3 environment, use pypi to install the latest oemof version. Python >= 3.6 is recommended. Lower versions may work but are not tested.

pip install oemof.solph

If you want to use the latest features, you might want to install the developer version. The developer version is not recommended for productive use:

pip install https://github.com/oemof/oemof-solph/archive/dev.zip

For running an oemof-solph optimisation model, you need to install a solver. Following you will find guidelines for the installation process for different operation systems.

Installing a solver

There are various commercial and open-source solvers that can be used with oemof. There are two common OpenSource solvers available (CBC, GLPK), while oemof recommends CBC (Coin-or branch and cut). But sometimes its worth comparing the results of different solvers. Other commercial solvers like Gurobi or Cplex can be used as well. Have a look at the pyomo docs to learn about which solvers are supported.

Check the solver installation by executing the test_installation example below (see section Installation Test).

Linux

To install the solvers have a look at the package repository of your Linux distribution or search for precompiled packages. GLPK and CBC ares available at Debian, Feodora, Ubuntu and others.

Windows

1. Download CBC
2. Download GLPK (64/32 bit)
3. Unpack CBC/GLPK to any folder (e.g. C:/Users/Somebody/my_programs)
4. Add the path of the executable files of both solvers to the PATH variable using this tutorial
5. Restart Windows

Check the solver installation by executing the test_installation example (see the Installation test section).

Mac OSX

Please follow the installation instructions on the respective homepages for details.

CBC-solver: https://projects.coin-or.org/Cbc

GLPK-solver: http://arnab-deka.com/posts/2010/02/installing-glpk-on-a-mac/

If you install the CBC solver via brew (highly recommended), it should work without additional configuration.

conda

Provided you are using a Linux or MacOS, the CBC-solver can also be installed in a conda environment. Please note, that it is highly recomended to use pip after conda, so:

conda install -c conda-forge coincbc
pip install oemof.solph

Installation test

Test the installation and the installed solver by running the installation test in your virtual environment:

oemof_installation_test

If the installation was successful, you will receive something like this:

*********
Solver installed with oemof:
glpk: working
cplex: not working
cbc: working
gurobi: not working
*********
oemof.solph successfully installed.

as an output.

Contributing

A warm welcome to all who want to join the developers and contribute to oemof.solph.

Information on the details and how to approach us can be found in the oemof documentation .

Citing

For explicitly citing solph, you might want to refer to DOI:10.1016/j.simpa.2020.100028, which gives an overview over the capabilities of solph. The core ideas of oemof as a whole are described in DOI:10.1016/j.esr.2018.07.001 (preprint at arXiv:1808.0807). To allow citing specific versions, we use the zenodo project to get a DOI for each version.

Examples

The linkage of specific modules of the various packages is called an application (app) and depicts for example a concrete energy system model. You can find a large variety of helpful examples in oemof's example repository on github to download or clone. The examples show optimisations of different energy systems and are supposed to help new users to understand the framework's structure. There is some elaboration on the examples in the respective repository. The repository has sections for each major release.

You are welcome to contribute your own examples via a pull request or by sending us an e-mail (see here for contact information).

License

Copyright (c) 2023 oemof developer group

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.