xl2times: progress update & a proof-of-concept interactive notebook-based workflow
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xl2times: progress update & a proof-of-concept interactive notebook-based workflow Mr. Siddharth Krishna, Open Energy Transition
xl2times: progress update & a proof-of-concept interactive notebook-based workflow
- 1. xl2times – updates and notebook-based workflow Summer 2025 Semi-Annual ETSAP Meeting June 10th, Nara, Japan Olexandr Balyk and Siddhart Krishna
- 2. Talk Overview • Recap • Updates • Usage for Scenario analysis • Jupyter Notebooks demo • Getting started / contributing
- 3. Quick Facts • Outcome of the ETSAP R&D Project “Open source TIMES Excel Reader” (finished April 2024) • Based on times-excel-reader started at Microsoft • Enables the use of Excel-based TIMES models in a non- interactive, automatable, and reproducible manner • Available via pip and on https://github.com/etsap-times/xl2times
- 4. Functionality Overview Model files xl2times ts.dd milestonyr.dd output.dd • Generation of GAMS input files • Automated comparison with “ground truth” (e.g. to assess interpretation accuracy of existing models) • Generation of textual representation of model data in Excel files (used by the TIMES-NZ team)
- 5. Development Approach • Automated regression testing on DemoS 01-12, TIM and TIMES-NZ models (with every pull request). • Manual testing on proprietary or really big models (e.g. TIMES-GEO) • Over 90% accuracy on most tested models
- 6. Recent updates • ca. 70 PR since the initial release: https://github.com/etsap-TIMES/xl2times/compare/v0.1.0...v0.3.0 • Improvements include: • Performance (e.g. allowed including TIMES-NZ in benchmarks) • Accuracy (e.g. all DemoS are ~100%) • Usability (e.g. different level of logging) • Special in version 0.3.0: • Exposure of TimesModel object (e.g. for using in Jupyter Notebooks) • Separation of the *.dd creation step (e.g. can be supplemented by other formats)
- 7. xl2times for scenario analysis
- 8. TimesModel for Scenario Analysis Use xl2times to generate TimesModel from *.xlsx files Make changes to TimesModel in a python script or Jupyter Notebook Generate *.dd files, run GAMS and analyse the results
- 9. Demonstration • A basic example is available with xl2times: https://github.com/etsap- TIMES/xl2times/blob/main/tests/notebook-demo.ipynb • It can be experimented with on Google colab: https://colab.research.google.com/github/etsap- TIMES/xl2times/blob/main/tests/notebook-demo.ipynb • Or locally…
- 10. Possible API extensions • Ease of use • TimesModel.add_process() • TimesModel.add_commodity() • TimesModel.add_attribute() • TimesModel.add_constraint() • … • The method could include • Default values • Data input feedback • Validation
- 11. Benefits • Create a transparent record of the steps necessary to carry out a specific scenario analysis • No clatter added to the core model • Easy to reproduce the analysis (incl. with a different model version) • Documentation of the analysis • Allow users without familiarity of Veda to carry out the analysis • Leverage preexisting skills in python and/or pandas • Start working on the study right away (i.e. without learning new software) • Orchestrate (programmatically) advanced scenario analysis
- 12. Getting started / Contributing / Ideas • Bulk test your TIMES model (guide available on https://xl2times.readthedocs.io) • Submit issues to https://github.com/etsap-TIMES/xl2times/issues • Open PRs with code improvements • Contribute ideas / code to develop the API • Develop a package for passing various TIMES settings/options • Try it with LLMs (e.g. https://github.com/cdgaete/pypsa-mcp) • Reach out!