— Artelys Knitro efficiently solves black-box optimization problems to win the 2019 BBComp edition! This accomplishment highlights Artelys Knitro excellent performance and robustness in the field of Derivative-Free Optimization (DFO).

Artelys Knitro won the expansive single objective track of the 2019 BBComp edition. This accomplishment highlights Artelys Knitro excellent performance and robustness in the field of Derivative-Free Optimization (DFO).

BBComp is a continuous black-box optimization competition where test problems are truly black boxes for participants as no assumptions can be made about the analytic form of the function to be optimized (e.g., being linear or quadratic).

The purpose of the BBComp challenge is to find the optimal objective value to a given black-box problem with a limited function evaluation budget. Artelys Knitro embeds several black-box specializations to efficiently solve such problems. The Sequential Quadratic Programming (SQP) algorithm combined with a dedicated termination criteria makes the best use of the function evaluation budget.

Such black-box formulations are frequent in several application fields, for example when optimizing networks or in blending problems. In particular, relying on external simulators usually prevents the solver from exploiting the optimization problem’s analytical formulation.

— Powernext successfully held the first auction of Guarantees of Origin (GO) for the French State on September, 18th. The auction platform uses a market clearing algorithm designed by Powernext and Artelys and implemented by Artelys for the selection of offers.

Guarantees of Origin (GOs) are green certificates that allow power retailers to certify the nature of the energy sold to their customers, in particular in their commercial offers for green electricity. In France GO’s lifecycle is tracked in a national registry.

The French Department of Energy (DGEC) has appointed Powernext for holding this national registry and for organizing monthly auctions to sell the Guarantees of Origin issued from French renewable power plants under feed-in-tariffs. The GO auctions will help the French State get a new added value from these devices while providing bidders with competitive and tailor-made products. The first auction was successfully held by Powernext on September the 18th.

The auction platform uses a market clearing algorithm designed by Powernext and Artelys and implemented by Artelys for the selection of offers. This algorithm allows GO buyers to differentiate their bids based on technologies, regions, or even specific devices. The market clearing algorithm selects the optimal offers with regards to the auction revenue and equity maximization.

Artelys Knitro is the optimization solver used in the market clearing algorithm and is able to solve the problem in less than a minute.

The press release is available here.

— Artelys has developed an interactive web-based model of an interconnected electricity grid, which TenneT uses on its website to present the key challenges of managing its network.

TenneT is a leading European electricity transmission system operator (TSO) with its main activities in the Netherlands and Germany.

The interactive web-based model developed by Artelys for TenneT is meant to create awareness of the challenges of managing a high-voltage grid and highlight the important role of transmission system operators (TSOs) in achieving system stability on a real time basis. It includes three compelling serious games that enable the visitors to “step into the shoes” of TenneT. Through the “expert mode”, the visitor may create/edit/save new power systems from scratch. The simulator automatically and instantly computes the flow of electric power in the transmission lines.

The power flow simulator is now available on TenneT’s website.

— Check out the new version of Artelys Knitro! Artelys Knitro 12 release comes with a brand-new Julia interface and clear improvements on mixed-integer models (MIP/MINLP).

Check out the new version of Artelys Knitro! A brand-new Julia interface is now available. It relies on both Knitro and MathOptInterface most recent APIs providing an efficient and flexible model definition. This Julia interface also supports the JuMP modeling language enabling optimization problem modeling in no time!

Artelys Knitro 12 also comes with clear improvements on mixed-integer models (MIP/MINLP). Several new cut families including Mixed Integer Rouding, zero-half and clique have been implemented and add up to the already existing knapsack cuts.

Those new cuts have been tested on a subset of instances derived from CMU-IBM and MINLPLib1&2 libraries. As illustrated above, both the computation time and the number of tree search nodes generated have been drastically improved when using Artelys Knitro 12!

Other features

• A new Python function, called ‘optimize’, solving all your optimization problems using Knitro in a single call fashion
• Enhancement of the presolver including multipass methods applying successive presolve operations to fully exploit your problem structure
• The Knitro-Tuner has been extended to handle mixed-integer models to automatically identify the best parameters required to solve the most complex instances!
• Support of the MPS file format (Mathematical Programming System) enabling the resolution of a wide range of linear and quadratic problems
• General performance improvement especially for large SOCP instances

— Artelys Crystal Super Grid enables the JRC analysts and developers to create and modify models of the European energy system, and to enrich the library of key performance indicators via an intuitive graphical user interface.

The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) is carrying out research in order to provide independent scientific advice and support to EU policy. The JRC recently started using Artelys Crystal Super Grid. The modelling platform enables the JRC analysts and developers to create and modify models of the European energy system, and to enrich the library of key performance indicators via an intuitive graphical user interface. In particular, the JRC can run large-scale simulations (e.g. multi-energy capacity expansion planning at the European level) using a cutting-edge decomposition algorithm that fully takes advantage of the parallel architecture of their high-performance computing servers. The tool offers a rich library of visualisation options, allowing analysts to extract detailed and/or aggregated results and to share insights with colleagues.

The METIS models (which will soon be made publicly available by the EC) can easily be imported, analysed, and modified with the Artelys Crystal Super Grid modelling platform. The scenarios generated by the JRC can also be exported as METIS-compatible models and datasets that can be shared with DG ENER analysts.

For more information on Artelys Crystal Super Grid, do not hesitate to contact us.

— A new version of Artelys Kalis is available!

Main features

This update comes with a refined Python interface improving the user friendliness and flexibility for constraint declaration. In addition, the user now has the possibility to define custom branching schemes through the Python interface.

A new constraint also enters our catalog: a table constraint which allows to define the list of tuples allowed for the given variables. This constraint offers high flexibility and performance to deal with problems where the list of allowed tuples is way inferior to the total admissible tuples (for example traffic lights, bin-packing problems or industrial complex systems configuration).

Other features of Artelys Kalis 12.6.3

• New online documentation including C++/Python/Java examples
• New Jupyter notebooks presenting the Python interface on jobshop problems
• Enhancement of the method to retrieve the minimal conflict set
• General performance improvement of the Generic Arc-Consistency algorithms

— Artelys will participate in the INFORMS Business Analytics Conference in Austin on April 14th - 16th, 2019.

INFORMS is a yearly gathering of 1,000 analytics professionals and industry experts: executives, analysts, managers and data scientists. They represent a large variety of economic sectors, such as utilities, supply chain, healthcare and entertainment.

Artelys will hold four presentations:

 

Artelys will have a booth showcasing its consulting services, optimization solvers and the Artelys Crystal platform. Do not miss this opportunity to connect with our industry experts who will be glad to share their expertise and answer your questions at Booths 40 & 41.

We look forward to meeting you there!

— Artelys has attended the “CBTE” at Rennes, on the 6th December 2018.

Artelys and its partner Auxilia have assisted the Brittany region in the development of ambitious energy/climate scenarios at the 2040 horizon. These scenarios have been presented at the Breton Conference on the Energy Transition, which has been held on 6th December 2018 in Rennes, France. The event has gathered the region president, the region prefect and more than 150 energy experts and stakeholders

 

After having carried out a diagnosis of the regional energy system, Artelys has conducted a prospective work, to which many regional energy experts have contributed. The result of this work consists of 3 scenarios for 2020-2040 with various degrees of ambition, the greenest one going towards a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by a factor 4 at the 2050 horizon.

— The European Commission and Artelys invite you to the METIS Dissemination Event taking place on 20 February 2019 in Brussels. During this event, we will present the latest results of the METIS project and discuss the benefits of using modelling tools such as METIS for energy/climate policy making.

Over the past four years, Artelys and its partners have been developing the METIS tool on behalf of the European Commission. METIS is a mathematical model providing analysis of the European energy system for electricity, gas and heat. It simulates the operation of energy systems and markets on an hourly basis over a year, while factoring in uncertainties like weather variations.

On Wednesday 20/02 from 09:00 to 12:30 (registration from 08:30), DG ENER organises the METIS Dissemination Event. It will take place in Centre de Conference Albert Borschette (CCAB) in Brussels (Rue Froissart 36, 1040 Brussels). The Event will be the opportunity to present and exchange on METIS and its utilisation for and by the European Commission for the analysis of EU power and gas systems and markets.

Jointly with the European Commission, we will share with you the latest insights on different policy questions the METIS tool has been designed to address: the role of flexibility in the future power mix, the value of multi-energy assessments, and the evolution of power markets over the coming decades.

The Event will be concluded by a panel discussion on the upcoming policy questions for power and gas markets and the usefulness of such type of tools to address them. You may find the draft agenda online.

The room capacity being limited, we encourage to register as soon as possible.

To enter the building you will need a printed version of the official invitation from Lukasz Kolinski, Head of Unit DG ENER A4, and the document of identification used in the registration form.