New release of the PyPSA-Eur model of the European power system

[Jonas Hörsch]

Dear openmodders/stromis,

Just in time for this winters workshop of the open energy modelling
initiative, we are pleased to announce the first 0.1.0 release of the
PyPSA-Eur model of the European power system at the transmission network
level:

https://pypsa-eur.readthedocs.io/ (Documentation)

https://github.com/PyPSA/pypsa-eur (Github)

https://zenodo.org/record/3603127#.Xhcvdtl7m0I (Code)

https://zenodo.org/record/3601882#.XhcvqNl7m0J (Dataset)

The model covers the ENTSO-E area and contains all alternating current
lines at and above 220 kV voltage level and all high voltage direct
current lines, substations, an open database of conventional power
plants, time series for electrical demand and variable renewable
generator availability, and geographic potentials for the expansion of
wind and solar power.

The model only includes freely available and open data. It provides a
fully automated free software pipeline to assemble the load-flow-ready
model from the original datasets, which enables easy configuration,
replacement and improvement of the individual parts.

The model is suitable both for operational studies and generation and
transmission expansion planning studies.

Some basic validation is provided in a paper describing the dataset:

Jonas Hörsch, Fabian Hofmann, David Schlachtberger, and Tom Brown.
PyPSA-Eur: An open optimisation model of the European transmission
system. Energy Strategy Reviews, 22:207-215, 2018.
https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.01613, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esr.2018.08.012.

Further validation and improvement is ongoing.

Planned improvements to the model and current limitations can be found here:

https://github.com/PyPSA/pypsa-eur/issues

https://pypsa-eur.readthedocs.io/en/latest/limitations.html

Please feel free to contribute and suggest new features.

We answer questions preferably on the PyPSA mailing list:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/pypsa

A version with additional energy sectors (transport, building heating,
industry) will follow later in the year.

Best wishes,

Jonas Hörsch
Tom Brown (KIT IAI)
Fabian Hofmann (FIAS)
Fabian Neumann (KIT IAI)
David Schlachtberger