Hi @c-franz
Two responses. First, there are at least two projects to build smart tooling for model‑servicing data storage:
- PowerSystems.jl — Documentation. Originating at NREL.
- Spine Toolbox project. VTT Finland and others.
Even if these data systems do not (currently) output the costs you wish directly — total monetary cost in your case — writing some code to loop through all the utilized assets — or some filtered subsets, say heat and power — should be straightforward. A few lines of julia in the case of PowerSystems.jl, assuming that your “world view” and the type hierarchy built into that tooling aligns sufficiently well.
Second, model frameworks need only consider decision‑relevant costs. So to equate the solved object function value to the total system cost might well fall short! Therefore a clear advantage of using one of the data systems indicated is that they can easily support a more encompassing view of costs than that embedded in the modeling frameworks they are coupled to. These data systems might, for instance, also report greenhouse gas metrics — both operational and embodied (or can be extended thus). Ditto for other classes of cost such as depletable resource consumption or wildlife impacts. And, if you are lucky, the tooling will also report and plot these aggregate results for you.
Indeed I think this separation of framework and data system could prove quite a useful approach for this community.
Not related to your question, but this kind of tooling is also designed to facilitate much the same models — or scenarios to take a higher view — being run on different frameworks. And if you push that idea out as far as it will go, you might well arrive at the SzenarienDB project:
Hope ths helps. R