Glossary

Study

A study gathers a set of power system configurations (so-called “contexts”, see below) and specific parameter and indicator configurations dedicated to the studied case

Context

Term used to describe a modelled state of a given power system configuration. A context contains all the information required for simulation: portfolio parameters, physical and financial parameters, datasets, optimization parameters, etc. Several test cases can be included in a context, to represent different weather scenarios.

Test case

A test case is a variability dimension, which can cover for example weather variations or outages for thermal groups. They usually impact demand, timeseries, renewable generation profiles, temperature-dependent parameters.

The dispatch varies for a test case to another, while the capacities remain unchanged. Results can be assessed across multiple testcases.

Asset

An asset represents an entity modelled in a context, which may be a consumer, a producer, etc.

Node (or Delivery point)

Each asset is connected to one or several nodes, where the supply and demand equilibrium is performed. Small islands can be represented by a single node while larger ones could be described at a higher granularity. Interconnectors allow for energy exchanges between nodes.

Behaviors

For some assets, several models are available (some more simple, others more refined). Behaviors are a way to activate model refinements.

Attributes

Attributes are the parameters that define an asset. The list of attributes depends on the type of the asset. Some attributes can be activated or deactivated by a given behavior.

Scenarisation study

A scenarisation study is a specific type of study which contains one or multiple pathways instead of contexts. The pathway object represents a scenario and can be visualized as a diagram. It is composed of connected pathway steps.

Pathway

A pathway represents a possible evolution of the energy system. It starts with a representation of the system at a given time, and continues with a set of representative years for the future.

Period

A period represents a time point in the scenarisation study horizon. For instance, the user may split the horizon between 2020 and 2050 into 4 periods: 2020, 2030, 2040, 2050. Periods must be equally spaced in time.

Pathway step

A pathway is constituted of multiple milestones called pathway steps. Each step represents a situation of an energy system for a given period. A context is associated to the pathway step to represent this state of the energy system.