How to use eTraGo?

After you installed eTraGo you would typically start optimization runs by executing the ‘appl.py’ which is situated in ./eTrago/etrago/ (e.g by python3 appl.py from the terminal).

eTraGo doesn’t have a graphical user interface, the ‘appl.py’ is used as a simple user interface which can be edited with the preferred python-editor. Here parameters, calculation methods and scenario settings are set in a python dictionary called ‘args’. To run the desired calculation, it is crucial to understand these parameters. In addition, some of them contradict the usage of others. You find the documentation of all defined parameters from the ‘args’ here: etrago.appl.run_etrago().

Alternatively, the ‘args’ dictionary can be edited in a json-file. Then the path to the json-file has to be set in the initilization of the Etrago-object (etrago.tools.network.Etrago). Once a path is given the ‘args’ dictionary within the ‘appl.py’ is ignored and replaced by the ‘args’ of the json-file.

The appl.py contains the etrago.appl.run_etrago() function which uses the defined ‘args’ dictionary to start the desired calculation.

To improve the performance of the optimization of the selected solver, you might want to use solver options (part of ‘args’). For gurobi the most used ones are described here.

For more specific or extensive changes you are highly invited to write code and add new functionalities.

Once the calculation has finished the PyPSA network of the Etrago-object will contain all results. Some main results (e.g. anuual system costs) are calculated by etrago.calc_results() and can be accesed via ‘etrago.results’. You can use several plotting functions from the etrago.tools.plot() in order to visualize the results. For example the etrago.tools.plot.plot_grid() can be used to plot relative line loading in % or the optimized expansion of all AC lines and DC links of the network.

To save the results you can write them to csv files. These functionalites can be specified also in the ‘args’ dictionary.

Examples and tutorial notebooks

eTraGo version 0.5.1: etrago_OpenMod_Zuerich18.

eTraGo version 0.9: eTraGo_eGon_final_workshop.