CaseRunner

A way to run a list of GenX cases as separate batch jobs, or locally in sequence as one job.

Invocation

Ensure that the julia binary is available. (On a cluster, ensure that the Julia module is loaded.)

> module load julia

Starting from the CaseRunner directory, run the case runner script.

> julia caserunner.jl

How the template scheme works

• One or more of the entries in the various .csv files are replaced by "special key" strings which take the form __SPECIAL_Abcd__, __SPECIAL_xyz__.
• A csv file called replacements.csv has rows which correspond to a user-given case number and replacements for each of the special fields.
• One special key field in the template folder corresponds to exactly one column in the replacements file. No duplicates.
• The program will warn you if you have duplicates or incomplete matching of special keys with replacement files.

Details of the special key string

• The string must start with __SPECIAL_ and end with __.
• Between the start and end groups there must be a key which does not contain an underscore.

Good: __SPECIAL_A__, __SPECIAL_cow1234__. Bad: __SPECIAL__ __SPECIAL_THIS_is_BAD__ __Akey__

An example of replacements.csv and the corresponding templates in files

replacements.csv

Case,  solarcost,    aFloat,  myFuel, Notes
1,         10000,      0.02,      NG, these notes are ignored
2,         20000,      0.04,      NG, write whatever you want in the Notes column.
50,        30000,      0.06,  biogas,

The Notes column is optional. If there is a Notes column, commas may be required after all previous column entries.

template/Reserves.csv

Reg_Req_Percent_Load, Reg_Req_Percent_VRE, Rsv_Req_Percent_Load, ...
                0.01,  __SPECIAL_aFloat__,                0.033,

template/Generators_data.csv

    Resource,      Inv_Cost_per_MWyr,               Fuel, ...
 natural_gas,                  23045, __SPECIAL_myFuel__,
onshore_wind,                  84030,               None,
    solar_pv,  __SPECIAL_solarcost__,               None,
     battery,                  19034,               None,

How the job scheme works

In batch mode, one slurm batch job is associated with each case. The batch script is located in the template folder, and is jobscript.sh. It is the same for each case. Cases go into the folder Cases/case_[n] where n is the user-supplied (positive integer) case number in the replacements.csv file. Cases can be ordered in any fashion.

In sequential mode, cases are run one after the other from the invocing node. This may reduce loading times and allows running cases locally. (This will fail if the local node lacks a solver license.)

Switching between batch mode and sequential mode

In caserunner.jl there's a variable near the top which is set to either "BATCH" or "SEQUENTIAL". Running in sequential mode does not use the jobscript.sh file; you will need to ensure that the julia invocation includes the proper environment, such as julia --project="/my/GenX/" caserunner.jl.

Behavior

If you re-run the caserunner.jl script it will skip over any cases for which case_n folders already exist. It will report that they have been skipped.

This allows the user to add new lines to the replacements.csv file: only the new rows will be run. This also allows recovery if some runs did not complete, for example due to not enough time allocated in the batch script. If the user manually deletes them they can then modify the batch script in the template folder (to add more time) and re-run. This avoids having to destory or re-run all the cases.

There is no automated job failure detection and re-starting

This feature is not implemented.

No analysis features

There are no post-run analysis features.