Tutorials: Overview and Setup

Overview

The ZEN-garden tutorials provide interactive, hands-on instructions for the most important skills required to master ZEN-garden. All tutorials are based on the example model 1_base_case from the included dataset examples. Tutorials Setup describes how to install and run this example model. All tutorials start from this point.

We recommend new users to start with the Tutorial 1: Analyze Results. This tutorial helps users to explore and access the outputs that ZEN-garden. All subsequent tutorials are fully independent of one-another. Users are thus free to explore these tutorials in any order.

The provided tutorials are:

  1. Tutorial 1: Analyze Results

Tutorials Setup

This module describes all the setup steps required in order to run the tutorials. Each tutorial starts from the same starting point and can therefore be run independently of all other tutorials.

To begin each tutorial:

  1. Install ZEN-garden by following the instructions in the installation guide.

  2. Download the example dataset 5_multiple_time_steps_per_year by following the instructions for using dataset examples. When following these instructions, replace <example name> with 5_multiple_time_steps_per_year to download the appropriate data set.

  3. Run the dataset example using the instructions for running a model. When following the instructions, replace <dataset_name> with 5_multiple_time_steps_per_year.

Once run, ZEN-garden will begin printing output into the command window. Upon successful completion, the following line will be printed:

--- Optimization finished ---

A new directory called output, which contains the ZEN-garden output files, will be added in the current data directory.

The dataset 5_multiple_time_steps_per_year simulates electricity and heat supply for a two-node system. The two nodes are Germany (DE) and Switzerland (CH). Electricity can only be supplied by solar photovoltaics, while heat can only be supplied by a natural gas boiler. Natural gas can be freely imported at each node. The model simulates three years (2023, 2024, and 2025) and 96 hours (4 days) per year. More detailed descriptions of the dataset, and all other example datasets, can be found in dataset examples.