Get started

Welcome to urbs! Here you can learn how to use the program and what to do to create your own optimization problems and run them.

Inputs

There are two different types of inputs the user has to make in order to set up and solve an optimization problem with urbs.

First, there are the model parameters themselves, i.e. the parameters specifying the behavior of the different model entities such as commodities or processes. These parameters are entered into spreadsheets with a standardized structure. These then have to be placed in the subfolder Input. There can be no further information given on those parameters here since they make up the particular energy system models. There are, however, two examples provided with the code, which are explained elsewhere in this documentation.

Second, there are the settings of the modeling run such as the modeling horizon or the solver to be employed. These settings are made in a run script. For the standard example such scripts are given named runme.py for the example mimo-example and runBP.py for the example Business park. To run a modeling run you then simply execute the according run script by typing:

$ python3 runscript.py

in the command prompt.

You can immediately test this after the installation by running one of the two standard examples using the corresponding example run scripts.