The Democratisation of Energy Modelling

This study evaluates early open-source energy modeling frameworks, focusing on the "free and open from source to solver" criterion and introducing "user experience" as a critical dimension, with absorbability as a key metric. We analyze OSeMOSYS, DEECO, Balmorel, and TEMOA, all active before 2010, to assess their openness and accessibility for quantitatively competent energy analysts without coding expertise. OSeMOSYS, launched in 2008, was the first to meet the "source-to-solver" standard, using only open-source components like GLPK, preceding TEMOA by two years. Unlike Balmorel, which required the commercial GAMS environment, and DEECO, which depended on proprietary Numerical Recipes code, OSeMOSYS eliminated proprietary barriers. Additionally, OSeMOSYS excelled in user experience, leveraging GNU MathProg's algebraic syntax for high absorbability, making it accessible to non-coders. DEECO's C++ implementation, while robust, posed a higher barrier to entry. Using paper count as a proxy, OSeMOSYS's impact is evident, with its widespread adoption signaling its role as a pioneer in mainstreaming open-source energy modeling, complemented by the significant contributions of DEECO, Balmorel, and TEMOA.