Download and installation

Requirements

Calliope has been tested on Linux, macOS, and Windows.

Running Calliope requires four things:

  1. The Python programming language, version 3.8 or 3.9.

  2. A number of Python add-on modules (see below for the complete list).

  3. A solver: Calliope has been tested with CBC, GLPK, Gurobi, and CPLEX. Any other solver that is compatible with Pyomo should also work.

  4. The Calliope software itself.

Updating an existing installation

If following the recommended installation method above, the following command, assuming the conda environment is active, will update Calliope to the newest version

$ conda update -c conda-forge calliope

Solvers

You need at least one of the solvers supported by Pyomo installed. CBC (open-source) or Gurobi (commercial) are recommended for large problems, and have been confirmed to work with Calliope. Refer to the documentation of your solver on how to install it.

CBC

CBC is our recommended option if you want a free and open-source solver. CBC can be installed via conda on Linux and macOS by running `conda install -c conda-forge coincbc`. Windows binary packages are somewhat more difficult to install, due to limited information on the CBC website, but can be found within their binary archive and are included in their package releases on GitHub. The GitHub releases are more up-to-date. We recommend you download the relevant binary for CBC 2.10.8 and add cbc.exe to a directory known to PATH (e.g. an Anaconda environment ‘bin’ directory).

GLPK

GLPK is free and open-source, but can take too much time and/or too much memory on larger problems. If using the recommended installation approach above, GLPK is already installed in the calliope environment. To install GLPK manually, refer to the GLPK website.

Gurobi

Gurobi is commercial but significantly faster than CBC and GLPK, which is relevant for larger problems. It needs a license to work, which can be obtained for free for academic use by creating an account on gurobi.com.

While Gurobi can be installed via conda (conda install -c gurobi gurobi) we recommend downloading and installing the installer from the Gurobi website, as the conda package has repeatedly shown various issues.

After installing, log on to the Gurobi website and obtain a (free academic or paid commercial) license, then activate it on your system via the instructions given online (using the grbgetkey command).

CPLEX

Another commercial alternative is CPLEX. IBM offer academic licenses for CPLEX. Refer to the IBM website for details.

Python module requirements

Refer to requirements/base.yml in the Calliope repository for a full and up-to-date listing of required third-party packages.

Some of the key packages Calliope relies on are:

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