RTC-Tools documentation

RTC-Tools is an open-source Python package designed to model, simulate, and optimize networks or portfolios of assets, such as reservoirs, pumps, renewables, and batteries. It is part of LF Energy.

RTC-Tools provides a modular and extensible framework for operational optimization and control of complex systems across multiple domains, with a primary focus on water management and energy systems. Originally initiated at Deltares in 2015, RTC-Tools is deployed for water and power trading applications globally, with active implementations in North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

Application domains include:

• Water Management: Model-predictive control of canals, polders, reservoirs, hydropower scheduling, and pumped storage systems, including turbines, pumps, weirs, and other hydraulic structures.

• Energy Systems: Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) and portfolio optimization, heat network design, power trading, and multi-energy system planning.

Community Support

For questions, issues, and discussions, please use:

• GitHub Issues for bug reports and feature requests

• GitHub Discussions for questions and community discussions

Commercial Support

For applications in water management and hydropower, Deltares offers commercial support.

For applications in power trading and Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), PortfolioEnergy offers commercial support.

Governance & Roadmap

RTC-Tools development follows an open governance model. To learn more about the project roadmap:

• Review the roadmap discussion

• Check project milestones

Documentation Overview

The first chapter of this documentation covers getting the software running on your computer. The subsequent chapters describe the RTC-Tools Python API for optimization and simulation. The examples chapter illustrates several key features, including multi-objective optimization using weighting and lexicographic goal programming methods, as well as optimization under uncertainty using ensemble forecasts.

Contents

• Getting Started
  • Installation
  • Downloading and running examples
  • Copying Modelica libraries
  • Getting OMEdit
  • Running RTC-Tools
• Optimization
  • Basics
  • Time discretization
  • Modelica models
  • CSV I/O
  • Delft-FEWS I/O
  • Bookkeeping of linearization parameters
  • Lookup tables
  • Treatment of nonconvexities using homotopy
  • Initial state estimation
  • Multi-objective optimization
  • Forecast uncertainty
  • Using a custom solver version
• Simulation
  • Basics
  • CSV I/O
  • Delft-FEWS I/O
• Examples
  • Optimization examples
  • Simulation examples
• Related Projects
  • Water Systems
  • Multi-Energy Systems
  • Energy Trading

Indices and tables

• Index

• Search Page