Process Class

Description:

A process that transforms one or more input commodities to one or more output commodities

See also Process Property Reference for a detailed list of properties for this class of object.

Related Classes: Commodity, Facility.

Overview

A Process takes one or more Commodity inputs and converts them to one or more Commodity outputs. The conversion process has a given Efficiency and (optionally) Capacity. The Efficiency and Capacity properties are based on a Primary Input to Primary Output relationship. Where there are secondary inputs or outputs, their consumption and production is based on ratios of the primary process, rather than having separate efficiencies.

For example, as shown in Figure 1, the process of generating electricity from a fuel consumes a Primary Input Commodity and produces a Primary Output Commodity, in this case "Electricity" and Secondary Outputs "CO2".

You toggle on/off the modeling of a Process with the Units property. A Process may be 'floating' or 'attached'. Floating Process objects exist on their own and are not associated with any physical location or Facility. Attached Process objects are linked to one or more Facility objects. When a Process is attached to a Facility there are additional technical constraints and costs that can be applied. Note that a Process can be implemented by any number of Facility objects.

Figure 1: Example Electricity Generation Process

How to Use Process

The following guide will help you get started using the Process class:

• First create the Commodity objects that your Process will consume and produce.
• Decide which Commodity will be the Primary Input and which will be the Primary Output.
• If all commodities involved are energy types, or you can provide an Energy Density for them, then the simulator will have enough information to convert between commodities automatically and you need only provide the Process Efficiency. For other processes define the Conversion Factor between the commodities.
• Optionally attach the Process to one or more Facility objects that implement that same Process. This allows the definition of additional constraints and efficiency parameters related to how the process performs at a given Facility such as ramp constraints.

Figure 2: Interlinked Processes and Commodities

Examples

Table 1 provides several examples of Process objects and descriptions of their intended purpose. Table shows the memberships that form an electricity generation type of process with secondary outputs of emissions and spinning reserves. Table 3 shows memberships for the conversion of power to hydrogen with inputs of electricity and water and output of hydrogen. Table 4 shows example properties for the electricity generation Process and Table 5 the same for the power to hydrogen Process. Note the use of Operating Minimum Coefficient , Operating Capacity Coefficient, and Unit Maximum to provide additional constraints on the secondary production of the spinning reserve commodities by the Facility.

Table 1: Process examples

Class	Name	Category	Description
Process	Battery.Discharge	Electricity Producers	Battery discharging
Process	Gen.Coal	Electricity Producers	Generates Electricity from Coal
Process	Gen.Gas.CCGT	Electricity Producers	Generates Electricity from Gas using combined cycle
Process	Gen.Gas.CT	Electricity Producers	Generates Electricity from Gas using open cycle
Process	Gen.Hydro	Electricity Producers	Generate Electricity from Hydro Storage
Process	Gen.PS	Electricity Producers	Generates Electricity from Pumped Storage
Process	Gen.Solar	Electricity Producers	Generates Electricity from the Sun
Process	Gen.Wind	Electricity Producers	Generates Electricity from Wind
Process	H2-Power	Electricity Producers	Generates Electricity from H2
Process	Imports	Electricity Producers	External supply of Electricity
Process	Battery.Charge	Electricity Consumers	Battery charging
Process	CO2.Direct	Electricity Consumers	Direct air capture of CO2
Process	Exports	Electricity Consumers	Export of Electricity
Process	Load.PS	Electricity Consumers	Uses Electricity to Pump to Pumped Storage
Process	Power-eFuel	Electricity Consumers	Creates eFuel from Electricity, H2 and CO2
Process	Power-H2	Electricity Consumers	Creates H2 from Electricity and water
Process	Spill.Hydro	Other	Spills energy from Hydro

Table 2: Process memberships for electricity generation Process

Collection	Parent Name	Child Name	Parent Category	Child Category
Process.Primary Input	Gen.Coal	Coal	Electricity Producers	Resources
Process.Primary Output	Gen.Coal	Electricity	Electricity Producers	Products
Process.Secondary Inputs	Gen.Coal	Water	Electricity Producers	Resources
Process.Secondary Outputs	Gen.Coal	CO2.Atmo	Electricity Producers	Emissions
Process.Secondary Outputs	Gen.Coal	Heat	Electricity Producers	Emissions
Process.Secondary Outputs	Gen.Coal	Spin.Down	Electricity Producers	Products
Process.Secondary Outputs	Gen.Coal	Spin.Up	Electricity Producers	Products
Facility.Primary Process	Plant.Coal	Gen.Coal	Power	Electricity Producers

Table 3: Process memberships for power to hydrogen Process

Collection	Parent Name	Child Name	Parent Category	Child Category
Process.Primary Input	Power-H2	Electricity	Electricity Consumers	Products
Process.Primary Output	Power-H2	H2	Electricity Consumers	Storage
Process.Secondary Inputs	Power-H2	Water	Electricity Consumers	Resources
Facility.Primary Process	Plant.Power-H2	Power-H2	H2	Electricity Consumers

Table 4: Example data for electricity generation Process

Collection	Parent Object	Child Object	Property	Value	Data File	Units
Processes	System	Gen.Coal	Efficiency	37		%
Processes	System	Gen.Coal	Processing Charge	5		$
Process.Secondary Inputs	Gen.Coal	Water	Ratio	0.52		-
Process.Secondary Outputs	Gen.Coal	CO2.Atmo	Ratio	0.920432432		-
Process.Secondary Outputs	Gen.Coal	Heat	Ratio	15.44401544		-
Process.Secondary Outputs	Gen.Coal	Spin.Down	Ratio	1		-
Process.Secondary Outputs	Gen.Coal	Spin.Down	Operating Minimum Coefficient	-1		-
Process.Secondary Outputs	Gen.Coal	Spin.Up	Ratio	-1		-
Process.Secondary Outputs	Gen.Coal	Spin.Up	Operating Capacity Coefficient	1		-
Process.Secondary Outputs	Gen.Coal	Spin.Up	Unit Maximum	50		%

Table 5: Example data for power to hydrogen Process

Collection	Parent Object	Child Object	Property	Value	Data File	Units
Processes	System	Power-H2	Units	1		-
Processes	System	Power-H2	Efficiency	70		%

Constraints and Objectives

You can define custom constraints on Process via the Constraints membership. The Objectives membership allows you to include Commodity coefficients in your multi-objective optimization problems.