Quick Start Guide - Quar/UIL.Tml GitHub Wiki

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In this Quick Start Guide, we will start from absolute zero -- downloading and installing UIL, until having our first UIL model. Keep your seat belt fastened! Because all this will happen within only 15 minutes!

1. Utility Investment Library (UIL) requires a runnable AnyLogic (Version >= 7.1.2) to work, you can download AnyLogic Personal Learning Edition for free and use it with UIL. For those new to AnyLogic, check our AnyLogic 101 to get started.

2. Download Utility Investment Library (UIL).

3. Open AnyLogic and follow the animation to install UIL, if you have a previous version of UIL installed, remove it before install the lastest version.

   

1. Download the Sample Model and unzip.

2. Load the model UIL_Sample.alp into AnyLogic (for Windows users, simply double-click the model file; for Mac/Linux users, press 'Command-O' and open the file via file chooser)

3. Right click and choose in the pop-up menu.

4. Click in the presentation window. Now the simulation is running, UIL presents simulated utility investment scenario with a default speed of 250 times of the realtime. You can pause, speed-up or slow-down the presentation for optimal observation.

5. Here we may want to get the result as soon as possible, so we click to make our simulation "full speed ahead".

   

6. Finally, let's stop the simulation , and close the presentation window.

7. To view the generated output, we have to open the folder containing our model, and here is the shortcut: right click on the model, and then choose "Open Model Folder".

   

8. The newly generated Folder "experiments" contains simulation results ordered by simulation name. For example, under folder "Simulation", we have images captured visualizations and financial reports exported in Excel spreadsheets.

1. If you were wondering why "standing on the shoulders of darwfs", this simply because the sample in previous section is not a "giant" per se, with UIL we could produce more powerful simulation models. But to get your feet wet, we will stand on the shoulders of dwarfs for now ...

2. Let's create a new model based on the sample model by using "Saving As", to do so, right click on the model, and then choose "Save As ..."

   

3. We recommend to change both the "Model name" and "Java package" (such that you can open both models at the same time for comparison)

   

4. Double-click "Main" to make sure it is currently active in the canvas.

5. Switch to "Palette" and active the UIL library.

6. Drag module "Thermal Plant" into canvus, right between the existing two thermal plants.

7. Double-click on port "toEnv" of the new "Thermal Plant" and link it to the "toPlants" port of "economicEnvironment"

   

8. Similarly connect "toGrid" port of "Thermal Plant" to "fromPlants" of "powerGrid".

9. It is almost done! Now we will click on the "Thermal Plant" icon, and fill-in the parameters.

   Parameter Name	Value
   Overwrite Previous Output	FALSE (unchecked)
   Manual Planning	TRUE (checked)
   Start Building Time	"2015-09-01"
   Plant Name	"Thermal-002"
   Plant Size	80
   Lifetime	30
   Heat Rate	0.95E6
   Fuel -- Energy Content	3.86E4
   Fuel -- Marginal Cost	0.674
   Operations and Maintenance -- Fixed Cost	0.8E6
   Operations and Maintenance -- Marginal Cost	5.32
   Plant Initial Status	Candidate
   Construction Cost	170E6
   Est. Total Construction Time	4

10. To update estimations on economic evnvironment, let us change the Escalation Rate -- Fuel to another distribution:

    • click the icon of thermal plant in canvas
    • in properties palette, navigate to "Parameters - Setting"

    

    • clear the current filled text of "Escalation Rate -- Fuel"
    • from the menu bar, choose
    • we will now choose truncated normal distribution, with "min=-0.5, max=0.5, shift=0.1, stretch=0.2"

    

11. Download our improved example to cross-check.

• To know more about Utility Investment Library (UIL)
• To enhance AnyLogic operations
• To learn Modeling theory