Macro

Macro is a bottom-up, multi-sectoral infrastructure optimization model for macro-energy systems. It co-optimizes the design and operation of user-defined models of multi-sector energy systems and networks. Macro allows users to explore the impact of changing energy policies, technologies, demand patterns, and other factors on an energy system as a whole and as separate sectors.

Features

The Macro development team have built on their experience developing the GenX and Dolphyn models to develop a new architecture which is easier and faster to expand to new energy technologies, policies, and sectors.

Macro's key features are:

• Graph-based representation of the energy system, facilitating clear representation and analysis of energy and mass flows between sectors.
• "Plug and play" flexibility for integrating new technologies and sectors, including electricity, hydrogen, heat, and transport.
• High spatial and temporal resolution to accurately capture sector dynamics.
• Designed for distributed computing to enable large-scale optimizations.
• Tailored Benders decomposition framework for optimization.
• Open-source built using Julia and JuMP.

Citing Macro

We are working to publish a peer-reviewed paper describing Macro. In the meantime, please cite this GitHub repository:

@misc{Macro2025,
   author = {Ruaridh Macdonald and Filippo Pecci and Luca Bonaldo and Jun Wen Law and Yu Weng and Sambuddha Chakrabarti and Dharik Mallapragada and Jesse Jenkins},
   month = {5},
   title = {MacroEnergy.jl},
   url = {https://github.com/macroenergy/MacroEnergy.jl},
   year = {2025},
}

Installation

Macro is not currently released as a Julia package, so must be downloaded and installed manually.

To install Macro, please follow the installation instructions in the documentation, on the Getting Started / Installation page.

Learning to use Macro

Documentation

The Macro documentation can be found here.. The documentation contains five main resources:

• A getting started section, which shows you how to install and run Macro.
• Guides, which walk you through how to achieve specfic tasks using Macro.
• A manual, which describes all the components and features of Macro in detail.
• Tutorials, which are extended guides with worked examples
• A function reference, which etails the API and functions available with Macro.

Bug reports

Please report any bugs or new feature requrests on the Issues page of this repository.