Running MESSAGEix WITHOUT GAMS

[VandersonB]

Hello everyone,

I am coordinating an IAM project at my company, but we may not have a GAMS license available for it. I would like to know if anyone has tried running MESSAGEix without GAMS and, if so, could share their experience or thoughts about it.

Best regards,

[Wegatriespython]

Hi @VandersonB, GAMS is necessary for making and solving MESSAGEix scenarios. GAMS offers free licences but these will restrict the size and scale of the model that can be built. For reference the tutorial scenarios should work fine with a free licence.

To give an overview the MESSAGEix ecosystem has three layers, loosely speaking: [Database —IXMP] x [Algebraic Model —GAMS] x [Data preparation, model input, model output, and results analysis — Python]. So it is not possible to run message without GAMS without having an alternative implementation of the Algebraic Model outside of GAMS. Currently GAMS is the only supported algebraic modelling layer for MESSAGEix.

Hope this helps.

[Wegatriespython]

Update : https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ffiand_optimization-operationsresearch-decisionintelligence-share-7478714691226271744-AJYW/?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=ios_app&rcm=ACoAABRe5t4Btblvek6Websid87kHTz-D4W7eDc&utm_campaign=copy_link

GAMS seems to have changed their licencing policy, so users can get a personal license which allows the use of open source solvers with any model size. We have not tested out this license but it appears the information I gave above might have gone out of date. In theory MESSAGE can support these open source solvers, though we will update official docs soon depending on the results of testing this new license
policy.