WWW-WATEMS-GDL: An internet modelling system for energy policy models

WATEMS-GDL is an energy-modelling system designed for the easy construction and updating of energy-planning models of the mathematical programming type. This paper describes the development of WWW-WATEMS-GDL, based on WATEMS-GDL. WATEMS-GDL users can use WWW-WATEMS-GDL to put their energy models online and therefore make their models available to the public (or other research groups) over the Internet. In addition, the issue of ownership prohibits disclosure by owners of their models to the public. WWW-WATEMS-GDL allows model owners to put non-proprietary model parameters, e.g., number of periods, on the Internet. By using an Internet browser, guest users can replace the non-proprietary parameters with their own parameters, run the model with such parameters, and obtain the corresponding results over the Internet. An illustration is given. © 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.