Add announcement for the Open-Energy-Modeling project (#154)

Author: odow

_posts/2024-09-16-oem.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title:  "JuMP and HiGHS join forces to improve open energy modeling"
+date:   2024-09-16
+categories: [announcements,open-energy-modeling]
+author: "Miles Lubin, Carleton Coffrin, Oscar Dowson, Julian Hall, and Changhyun Kwon"
+---
+
+The [JuMP Steering Committee](/pages/governance/#steering-committee) is pleased
+to announce that we, through [NumFOCUS](https://numfocus.org), have received a
+large grant from the [Breakthrough Energy Foundation](https://www.breakthroughenergy.org)
+to improve the performance of JuMP and [HiGHS](https://highs.dev) on open energy
+models.
+
+In our recent post, [Steering Committee changes](/announcements/2024/07/30/julian/),
+we announced that Juan Pablo was stepping and Julian Hall (the lead developer of
+HiGHS) was joining the committee: this grant was the reason!
+
+## What this grant will be used for
+
+Our main goal for this grant is to collate a suite of benchmark LP and MIP model
+instances from JuMP-based open energy models such as
+[GenX.jl](https://github.com/GenXProject/GenX.jl),
+[TulipaEnergyModel.jl](https://github.com/TulipaEnergy/TulipaEnergyModel.jl),
+[Sienna](https://github.com/NREL-Sienna), and
+[SpineOpt.jl](https://github.com/spine-tools/SpineOpt.jl), and then use the
+benchmarks to guide improvements in JuMP and HiGHS.
+
+Among other things, we will be parallelizing the HiGHS MIP solver and improving
+the debugging experience of JuMP by adding generic IIS support.
+
+## Project partners
+
+[HiGHS](https://highs.dev) is world-leading open-source software for
+mathematical optimization, created by Julian Hall and Ivet Galabova from solvers
+written by University of Edinburgh PhD students. Development began in 2018, and
+a MIP solver written by Leona Gottwald was added in 2022.
+
+JuMP is an open-source domain-specific algebraic modelling language for
+mathematical optimization embedded in Julia. JuMP development began in 2013.
+JuMP was recognized by the [2015 COIN-OR Cup](https://www.coin-or.org/coinCup/coinCup2015Winner.html),
+the [2016 INFORMS Computing Society Prize](https://www.informs.org/Recognizing-Excellence/Community-Prizes/INFORMS-Computing-Society/INFORMS-Computing-Society-Prize),
+and the [2021 Beale–Orchard-Hays Prize](https://www.mathopt.org/?nav=boh).
+
+The agreement runs for one year, and the people being funded are:
+
+* [Dr. Julian Hall](https://github.com/jajhall), the lead developer of the
+  HiGHS solver
+* [Dr. Ivet Galabova](https://github.com/galabova), the HiGHS Integration and
+  Development manager
+* [Dr. Joaquim Dias Garcia](https://github.com/joaquimg), a core contributor to
+  JuMP
+* [Dr. Oscar Dowson](https://github.com/odow), a core contributor to JuMP, and
+  also a member of the Steering Committee.
+
+## Next steps
+
+If you are an open energy modeller who uses JuMP or HiGHS and you want to stay
+in touch with our progress or provide us with feedback and examples, write to
+`[email protected]`. We'd love to hear how you are using
+JuMP or HiGHS to solve problems related to open energy modelling.
+
+The first part of our work will focus on creating the benchmark examples in the
+[jump-dev/open-energy-modeling-benchmarks](https://github.com/jump-dev/open-energy-modeling-benchmarks)
+repository. Please open an issue if you have ideas or suggestions.
+
+We will also be posting monthly updates to this blog under the
+[#open-energy-modeling](/categories/#open-energy-modeling) tag.