Candidates

The candidates are defined in the candidates.ini file, which must be located inside the user/expansion/ directory of the Antares study folder: antares-study-folder/user/expansion/candidates.ini.

!!! info

For more info about the signification of the parameters, visit the 
user documentation page for 
[Xpansion candidates](https://antares-doc.readthedocs.io/en/latest/reference/xpansion-candidates).

Each investment candidate is characterized by the following properties:

• name (mandatory): name of the investment candidate (:warning: must not contain spaces and unique)
• link (mandatory): link on which there is a capacity investment
• annual-cost-per-mw (mandatory): investment cost, per year and per MW
• unit-size: size, in MW, of a single investment unit (e.g. one group of 300 MW)
• max-units: maximum number of units that can be built
• max-investment: maximum capacity in MW that can be invested in the candidate
• already-installed-capacity: capacity in MW that is already installed on the investment candidate's link
• direct-link-profile: name of a file that links the invested capacity and the available capacity for the direct way
• indirect-link-profile: name of a file that links the invested capacity and the available capacity for the indirect way
• already-installed-direct-link-profile: name of a file that links the already installed capacity and the available capacity for the direct way
• already-installed-indirect-link-profile: name of a file that links the already installed capacity and the available capacity for the indirect way

The format is a standard .ini file and should follow this template:

[1]
name =  # string
link = area_from - area_to # string
annual-cost-per-mw =    # float
max-investment =        # float
already-installed-capacity =    # float
direct-link-profile = capa_pv.csv
indirect-direct-link-profile = capa_pv.csv
already-installed-direct-link-profile = direct_installed_capa_pv.csv
already-installed-indirect-link-profile = indirect_installed_capa_pv.csv