Antares Xpansion
Investment simulations for Antares studies
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Antares Xpansion launcher

Quick start

  1. Open a command prompt in your Antares Xpansion install directory (by default it is named antaresXpansion-x.y.z-win64 where x.y.z is the version number).
  2. Run antares-xpansion-launcher.exe and choose the path to the Antares study with the -i parameter:
    antares-xpansion-launcher.exe -i examples\SmallTestFiveCandidates

‍The -i parameter can also be replaced by --dataDir.

Command line parameters

-h, --help

Show a help message and exit.

--step {full, antares, problem_generation, benders, gems, study_update, sensitivity, presolve, resume}

Default value: full.

The execution of Antares Xpansion consists of several steps that can be run separately. The --step parameter allows to select the steps to execute:

Step Description
antares Launch Antares-Simulator once to get the Antares problem.
problem_generation Generate the full Antares Xpansion problem using the user input and the output of the Antares-Simulator run.
benders Solve the investment optimization problem of Antares Xpansion, using the benders decomposition.
gems Combined step: runs antares-problem-generator followed by benders. antares-problem-generator creates problems files using GEMS optim-config
study_update Update the Antares study with the solution returned by the benders decomposition algorithm.
full Launch all steps in order: antares > problem_generation > benders > study_update
sensitivity Launch sensitivity analysis.
presolve Launch a presolver on the decomposed problem (only available with Xpress solver).
resume resume benders step of a study in accordance with --simulationName, by default last study is resumed.

-i, --dataDir

Specify the Antares study folder path. Use quotes “antares study path” in case of a space in the path.

--simulationName {last, your-antares-output-directory}

Default value: last.

Define the name of the Antares-Simulator output archive that Antares Xpansion uses to generate the expansion problem. If the value is last, the most recent run will be used. This option only has an effect when --step is among {problem_generation, benders, study_update, sensitivity}. In a step by step workflow keep both .zip file and -Xpansion corresponding folder.

-m, --method {benders, mergeMPS, adequacy_criterion}

Default value: benders.

Set the optimization method used by Antares Xpansion.

Option Description
benders Launch the classical Benders decomposition or the Benders by batch algorithm depending on batch_size.
mergeMPS Launch a frontal resolution of the investment problem (i.e. without decomposition). This is much more time-consuming than using Benders decomposition.
adequacy_criterion Launch Antares Xpansion with reliability constraints, see adequacy criterion.

--problem-format {MPS, OPTIMIZED}

Default value: OPTIMIZED.

Select the storage format of the generated mathematical problems (master + subproblems):

  • OPTIMIZED (default) : use underlying solver to write problems in an optimized format to reduce disk space usage and I/O time. The underlying format depends on the solver used.
    • XPRESS : svf format: compressed binary format.
    • COIN : unsupported. Falls back to MPS.
  • MPS : write the problems in MPS format, which is a standard format for mathematical programming problems.

-n, --np

Default value: 2.

Sets the number of MPI processes to use for the Benders decomposition. This option only has an effect when -m is set to benders.

--antares-n-cpu

Default value: 1.

Sets the number of threads to use for Antares-Simulator in the initial antares step.

--keepMps

Default value: False.

If set to True, keeps mps files that encodes the problems solved by the optimizer. This option must be set to True if the user intends to launch the optimization several times on the same study (--step benders) without doing the other steps of Antares Xpansion.

--presolve

Default value: False.

If set to True, runs the presolve step before calling the benders step

-v, --version

Show the Antares Xpansion version.

--antares-version

Show the Antares-Simulator version (used in the antares step).

--cache_problems

Enable "cache mode" for benders. Problems are not preloaded but loaded on demand. This is useful when hitting memory limitation during benders at the cost of some processing time.