3. Using GridPath

3.1. Workflow

GridPath input and scenario data are managed via an SQLite database. GridPath includes utilities to assist the user with importing raw data into the correct database tables and data format. With the inputs loaded, the user can then create scenarios by selecting subsets of the data (e.g. selecting a particular load profile or a different portoflio of generators). In GridPath’s database, these subsets of data are called subscenarios. A scenario generally consists of a list of subscenarios and GridPath includes utilities to select the correct data for each scenario. The user also selects desired features, which tells GridPath which database tables to look at.

See the Building the Database section for more details on how to set up and load inputs into the database, and create scenarios.

Scenario input files are written to disk in TAB files. The next step is for the Python model (consisting of various modules that create the model formulation) to read in the TAB-delimited input files and create the optimization problem. The compiled model file is then sent to the solver. GridPath is solver-agnostic and supports a wide range of solvers.

See the Running GridPath Scenarios section below for how to run a GridPath scenario.

Once the solver finds a solution, it returns the results to GridPath. GridPath’s modules then write CSV results files to disk. The user can select to manually or automatically import these results into the database.

Finally, GridPath includes functionality to process the results and creates various visualizations. See the Visualization section for more details.

3.2. Running GridPath Scenarios

3.2.1. The gridpath_run_e2e and gridpath_run commands

Once you have loaded inputs into the database and created a scenario, you can use the command gridpath_run_e2e to run a scenario from any directory – as long as your GridPath Python environment is enabled – as follows:

gridpath_run_e2e --database /PATH/TO/DATABASE --scenario SCENARIO_NAME
--scenario_location /PATH/TO/SCENARIO

The above command runs GridPath end-to-end, i.e. gets inputs for the scenario from the database, solves the scenario problem, imports the results into the database, and processes them.

If you are not using the database (not recommended), you can use the command gridpath_run to point to a scenario for which input .tab files have already been written:

gridpath_run --scenario SCENARIO_NAME --scenario_location /PATH/TO/SCENARIO

To see usage and other optional arguments, e.g. how to specify a solver, check the help menu, e.g.:

gridpath_run_e2e --help