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

If you use Macro, please cite the current version of the software and the software paper.

The version citation is available in the "About" section of the GitHub repository.

We have submitted a peer-reviewed paper describing Macro, but please cite the preprint in the meantime:

@article{macdonald2025macroenergy,
  title={MacroEnergy. jl: A large-scale multi-sector energy system framework},
  author={Macdonald, Ruaridh and Pecci, Filippo and Bonaldo, Luca and Law, Jun Wen and Weng, Yu and Mallapragada, Dharik and Jenkins, Jesse},
  journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.21943},
  year={2025}
}

Installation

You can install Macro (aka.MacroEnergy.jl) using the Julia package manager:

using Pkg
Pkg.add("MacroEnergy")

If you wish to make additions to Macro, please follow the installation instructions in the documentation, on the Getting Started / Installation page.

Recent changes

0.2.4 - 2026-09-10

Changed

• Skip Julia CI tests when changes are confined to CHANGELOG.md, README.md, or docs/, while retaining documentation builds and a consistent CI result check that reports successful tests or an intentional skip.

Fixed

• Removed [skip ci] from automated changelog commit messages so release tags pointing to those commits can trigger documentation deployment.

For the full release history, see CHANGELOG.md.

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 specific 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 requests on the Issues page of this repository.