Release Notes

Upcoming Release

  • Add an efficiency factor of 88.55% to offshore wind capacity factors as a proxy for wake losses. More rigorous modelling is planned [#277].
  • The default deployment density of AC- and DC-connected offshore wind capacity is reduced from 3 MW/sqkm to a more conservative estimate of 2 MW/sqkm [#280].

PyPSA-Eur 0.4.0 (22th September 2021)

New Features and Changes

  • With this release, we change the license from copyleft GPLv3 to the more liberal MIT license with the consent of all contributors [#276].
  • Switch to the new major atlite release v0.2. The version upgrade comes along with significant speed up for the rule build_renewable_profiles.py (~factor 2). A lot of the code which calculated the land-use availability is now outsourced and does not rely on glaes, geokit anymore. This facilitates the environment building and version compatibility of gdal, libgdal with other packages [#224].
  • Implemented changes to n.snapshot_weightings in new PyPSA version v0.18 (cf. PyPSA/PyPSA/#227) [#259].
  • Add option to pre-aggregate nodes without power injections (positive or negative, i.e. generation or demand) to electrically closest nodes or neighbors in simplify_network. Defaults to False. This affects nodes that are no substations or have no offshore connection.
  • In simplify_network, bus columns with no longer correct entries are removed (symbol, tags, under_construction, substation_lv, substation_off) [#219]
  • Add option to include marginal costs of links representing fuel cells, electrolysis, and battery inverters [#232].
  • The rule and script build_country_flh are removed as they are no longer used or maintained.
  • The connection cost of generators in simplify_network are now reported in resources/connection_costs_s{simpl}.csv [#261].
  • The tutorial cutout was renamed from cutouts/europe-2013-era5.nc to cutouts/europe-2013-era5-tutorial.nc to accomodate tutorial and productive cutouts side-by-side.
  • The flag keep_all_available_areas in the configuration for renewable potentials was deprecated and now defaults to True.
  • Update dependencies in envs/environment.yaml [#257]
  • Continuous integration testing switches to Github Actions from Travis CI [#252].
  • Documentation on readthedocs.io is now built with pip only and no longer requires conda [#267].
  • Use Citation.cff [#273].

Bugs and Compatibility

  • Support for PyPSA v0.18 [#268].
  • Minimum Python version set to 3.8.
  • Removed six dependency [#245].
  • Update plot_network and make_summary rules to latest PyPSA versions [#270].
  • Keep converter links to store components when using the ATK wildcard and only remove DC links [#214].
  • Value for co2base in config.yaml adjusted to 1.487e9 t CO2-eq (from 3.1e9 t CO2-eq). The new value represents emissions related to the electricity sector for EU+UK+Balkan. The old value was too high and used when the emissions wildcard in {opts} was used [#233].
  • Add escape in base_network if all TYNDP links are already contained in the network [#246].
  • In solve_operations_network the optimised capacities are now fixed for all extendable links, not only HVDC links [#244].
  • The focus_weights are now also considered when pre-clustering in the simplify_network rule [#241].
  • in build_renewable_profile where offshore wind profiles could no longer be created [#249].
  • Lower expansion limit of extendable carriers is now set to the existing capacity, i.e. p_nom_min = p_nom (0 before). Simultaneously, the upper limit (p_nom_max) is now the maximum of the installed capacity (p_nom) and the previous estimate based on land availability (p_nom_max) [#260].
  • Solving an operations network now includes optimized store capacities as well. Before only lines, links, generators and storage units were considered [#269].
  • With load_shedding: true in the solving options of config.yaml load shedding generators are only added at the AC buses, excluding buses for H2 and battery stores [#269].
  • Delete duplicated capital costs at battery discharge link [#240].
  • Propagate the solver log file name to the solver. Previously, the PyPSA network solving functions were not told about the solver logfile specified in the Snakemake file [#247]

PyPSA-Eur 0.3.0 (7th December 2020)

New Features

Using the {opts} wildcard for scenarios:

  • An option is introduced which adds constraints such that each country or node produces on average a minimal share of its total consumption itself. For example EQ0.5c set in the {opts} wildcard requires each country to produce on average at least 50% of its consumption. Additionally, the option ATK requires autarky at each node and removes all means of power transmission through lines and links. ATKc only removes cross-border transfer capacities. [#166].
  • Added an option to alter the capital cost (c) or installable potentials (p) of carriers by a factor via carrier+{c,p}factor in the {opts} wildcard. This can be useful for exploring uncertain cost parameters. Example: solar+c0.5 reduces the capital cost of solar to 50% of original values [#167, #207].
  • Added an option to the {opts} wildcard that applies a time series segmentation algorithm based on renewables, hydro inflow and load time series to produce a given total number of adjacent snapshots of varying lengths. This feature is an alternative to downsampling the temporal resolution by simply averaging and uses the tsam package [#186].

More OPSD integration:

  • Add renewable power plants from OPSD to the network for specified technologies. This will overwrite the capacities calculated from the heuristic approach in estimate_renewable_capacities() [#212].
  • Electricity consumption data is now retrieved directly from the OPSD website using the rule build_load_data. The user can decide whether to take the ENTSO-E power statistics data (default) or the ENTSO-E transparency data [#211].

Other:

  • Added an option to use custom busmaps in rule cluster_network. To use this feature set enable: custom_busmap: true. Then, the rule looks for custom busmaps at data/custom_busmap_elec_s{simpl}_{clusters}.csv, which should have the same format as resources/busmap_elec_s{simpl}_{clusters}.csv. i.e. the index should contain the buses of networks/elec_s{simpl}.nc [#193].
  • Line and link capacities can be capped in the config.yaml at lines: s_nom_max: and links: p_nom_max: [#166].
  • Added Google Cloud Platform tutorial (for Windows users) [#177].

Changes

  • Don’t remove capital costs from lines and links, when imposing a line volume limit (lv) or a line cost limit (lc). Previously, these were removed to move the expansion in direction of the limit [#183].
  • The mappings for clustered lines and buses produced by the simplify_network and cluster_network rules changed from Hierarchical Data Format (.h5) to Comma-Separated Values format (.csv) for ease of use. [#198]
  • The N-1 security margin for transmission lines is now fixed to a provided value in config.yaml, removing an undocumented linear interpolation between 0.5 and 0.7 in the range between 37 and 200 nodes. [#199].
  • Modelling hydrogen and battery storage with Store and Link components is now the default, rather than using StorageUnit components with fixed power-to-energy ratio [#205].
  • Use mamba (https://github.com/mamba-org/mamba) for faster Travis CI builds [#196].
  • Multiple smaller changes: Removed unused {network} wildcard, moved environment files to dedicated envs folder, removed sector-coupling components from configuration files, updated documentation colors, minor refactoring and code cleaning [#190].

Bugs and Compatibility

  • Add compatibility for pyomo 5.7.0 in cluster_network and simplify_network [#172].
  • Fixed a bug for storage units such that individual store and dispatch efficiencies are correctly taken account of rather than only their round-trip efficiencies. In the cost database (data/costs.csv) the efficiency of battery inverters should be stated as per discharge/charge rather than per roundtrip [#202].
  • Corrected exogenous emission price setting (in config: cost: emission price:), which now correctly accounts for the efficiency and effective emission of the generators [#171].
  • Corrected HVDC link connections (a) between Norway and Denmark and (b) mainland Italy, Corsica (FR) and Sardinia (IT) as well as for East-Western and Anglo-Scottish interconnectors [#181, #206].
  • Fix bug of clustering offwind-{ac,dc} generators in the option of high-resolution generators for renewables. Now, there are more sites for offwind-{ac,dc} available than network nodes. Before, they were clustered to the resolution of the network (elec_s1024_37m.nc: 37 network nodes, 1024 generators) [#191].
  • Raise a warning if tech_colors in the config are not defined for all carriers [#178].

PyPSA-Eur 0.2.0 (8th June 2020)

  • The optimization is now performed using the pyomo=False setting in the pypsa.lopf.network_lopf(). This speeds up the solving process significantly and consumes much less memory. The inclusion of additional constraints were adjusted to the new implementation. They are all passed to the network_lopf() function via the extra_functionality argument. The rule trace_solve_network was integrated into the rule solve_network and can be activated via configuration with solving: options: track_iterations: true. The charging and discharging capacities of batteries modelled as store-link combination are now coupled [#116].
  • An updated extract of the ENTSO-E Transmission System Map (including Malta) was added to the repository using the GridKit tool. This tool has been updated to retrieve up-to-date map extracts using a single script. The update extract features 5322 buses, 6574 lines, 46 links. [#118].
  • Added FSFE REUSE compliant license information. Documentation now licensed under CC-BY-4.0 [#160].
  • Added a 30 minute video introduction and a 20 minute video tutorial
  • Networks now store a color and a nicely formatted name for each carrier, accessible via n.carrier['color'] and n.carrier['nice_name'] ``(networks after ``elec.nc).
  • Added an option to skip iterative solving usually performed to update the line impedances of expanded lines at solving: options: skip_iterations:.
  • snakemake rules for retrieving cutouts and the natura raster can now be disabled independently from their respective rules to build them; via config.*yaml [#136].
  • Removed the id column for custom power plants in data/custom_powerplants.csv to avoid custom power plants with conflicting ids getting attached to the wrong bus [#131].
  • Add option renewables: {carrier}: keep_all_available_areas: to use all availabe weather cells for renewable profile and potential generation. The default ignores weather cells where only less than 1 MW can be installed [#150].
  • Added a function _helpers.load_network() which loads a network with overridden components specified in snakemake.config['override_components'] [#128].
  • Bugfix in base_network which now finds all closest links, not only the first entry [#143].
  • Bugfix in cluster_network which now skips recalculation of link parameters if there are no links [#149].
  • Added information on pull requests to contribution guidelines [#151].
  • Improved documentation on open-source solver setup and added usage warnings.
  • Updated conda environment regarding pypsa, pyproj, gurobi, lxml. This release requires PyPSA v0.17.0.

PyPSA-Eur 0.1.0 (9th January 2020)

This is the first release of PyPSA-Eur, a model of the European power system at the transmission network level. Recent changes include:

  • Documentation on installation, workflows and configuration settings is now available online at pypsa-eur.readthedocs.io [#65].
  • The conda environment files were updated and extended [#81].
  • The power plant database was updated with extensive filtering options via pandas.query functionality [#84 and #94].
  • Continuous integration testing with Travis CI is now included for Linux, Mac and Windows [#82].
  • Data dependencies were moved to zenodo and are now versioned [#60].
  • Data dependencies are now retrieved directly from within the snakemake workflow [#86].
  • Emission prices can be added to marginal costs of generators through the keyworks Ep in the {opts} wildcard [#100].
  • An option is introduced to add extendable nuclear power plants to the network [#98].
  • Focus weights can now be specified for particular countries for the network clustering, which allows to set a proportion of the total number of clusters for particular countries [#87].
  • A new rule add_extra_components allows to add additional components to the network only after clustering. It is thereby possible to model storage units (e.g. battery and hydrogen) in more detail via a combination of Store, Link and Bus elements [#97].
  • Hydrogen pipelines (including cost assumptions) can now be added alongside clustered network connections in the rule add_extra_components . Set electricity: extendable_carriers: Link: [H2 pipeline] and ensure hydrogen storage is modelled as a Store. This is a first simplified stage [#108].
  • Logfiles for all rules of the snakemake workflow are now written in the folder log/ [#102].
  • The new function _helpers.mock_snakemake creates a snakemake object which mimics the actual snakemake object produced by workflow by parsing the Snakefile and setting all paths for inputs, outputs, and logs. This allows running all scripts within a (I)python terminal (or just by calling python <script-name>) and thereby facilitates developing and debugging scripts significantly [#107].

Release Process

  • Checkout a new release branch git checkout -b release-v0.x.x.
  • Finalise release notes at doc/release_notes.rst.
  • Update envs/environment.fixed.yaml via conda env export -n pypsa-eur -f envs/environment.fixed.yaml --no-builds from an up-to-date pypsa-eur environment.
  • Update version number in doc/conf.py and *config.*.yaml.
  • Open, review and merge pull request for branch release-v0.x.x. Make sure to close issues and PRs or the release milestone with it (e.g. closes #X).
  • Tag a release on Github via git tag v0.x.x, git push, git push --tags. Include release notes in the tag message.
  • Upload code to zenodo code repository with MIT license.
  • Create pre-built networks for config.default.yaml by running snakemake -j 1 extra_components_all_networks.
  • Upload pre-built networks to zenodo data repository with CC BY 4.0 license.
  • Send announcement on the PyPSA and PyPSA-Eur mailing list.