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Data organization

In Antares, all input and output data regarding a given study are located within a folder named after the study and which should preferably be stored within a dedicated library of studies (for instance: C/.../A_name_for_an_Antares_lib/Study-number-one).

The software has been designed so that all input data may be handled (initialized, updated, deleted) through the simulator's GUI. Likewise, all results in the output data can be displayed and analyzed within the simulator: its standard GUI is actually meant to be able to provide, on a stand-alone basis, all the features required to access input and output in a user-friendly way.

In addition to that, the Antares simulator may come 1 with or without functional extensions that provide additional ways to handle input and output data.

These extensions take the form of companion applications whose documentation is independent of that of the main simulator. For information regarding these tools (Antares Data Organizer, AntaresViz R packages, …) please refer to the specific relevant documents.

Besides, a point of notice is that most of Antares files belong to either ".txt" or ".csv" type: as an alternative to the standard GUI, they can therefore be viewed and updated by many applications (Windows Notepad, Excel, etc.). However, this is not recommended since handling data this way may result in fatal data corruption (e.g. as a consequence of accidental insertion of special characters).

Direct access to input or output data files should therefore be reserved to experienced users.

The input data contained in the study folder describe the whole state of development of the interconnected power system (namely: grid, load and generating plants of every kind) for a given future year.

As already stated, all of these data may be reviewed, updated, deleted through the GUI, whose commands and windows are described in Sections 3 and 4.

Once the input data is ready for calculation purposes, an Antares session may start and involve any or all of the following steps: historical time-series analysis, stochastic times-series generation, (full) adequacy simulation and economic simulation.

The results of the session are stored within the output section of the study folder. The results obtained in the different sessions are stored side by side and tagged. The identification tag has two components: a user-defined session name and the time at which the session was launched.

Particular cases are:

  1. The outputs of the Antares time-series analyzer are not printed in the general output files but kept within the input files structure (the reason being that they are input data for the Antares time - series generators). The associated data may nonetheless be accessed to be reviewed, updated and deleted at any time through the GUI.

  2. Some specific input data may be located outside the study folder: this is the case for the historical times-series to be processed by the time-series analyzer, which may be stored either within the "user" subfolder of the study or anywhere else (for instance, on a remote "historical data" or "Meteorological data" server).

  3. The study folder contains a specific subfolder named "user", whose status is particular: Antares is not allowed to delete any files within it (yet files may be updated on the user's requirement). As a consequence, the "user" subfolder is unaffected by the "clean study" command (see Commands). This subfolder is therefore a "private" user space, where all kinds of information can be stored without any kind of interference with Antares. Note that on using the "save as" command (described further below), the choice is given to make or not a copy of this subfolder.

  4. The times-series analyzer requires the use of a temporary directory in which intermediate files are created in the course of the analysis and deleted in the end, unless the user wishes to keep them for further examination. Its location is user-defined and should usually be the "user" subfolder if files are to be kept, otherwise any proper temporary space such as C..../Temp.

  5. The outputs of the Antares Kirchhoff's constraints generator are not printed in the general output files but kept within the input files structure, the reason being that they are input data for the proper Antares simulation. The associated data (so-called binding constraints bearing in their name the prefix "@UTO-") may nonetheless be accessed to be reviewed, updated and deleted at any time through the GUI.

  1. Many various graphic extensions (under the form of programs written in the R language) are available at: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/antaresViz/index.html ↩