Some points to pay attention during RTC-Tools intergration into FEWS.
Forecast date
For rtc-tools, the start date is the earliest timestamp present in a timeseries. This is possibly historical data. forecast date is the point from which the optimization/simulation starts. In most cases the start data and the forecast date overlap. However, we have to leave the flexibility for the existence of historical information. (Say, for e.g., that the decision that you take now depends on what happened in the last 4 hours). In FEWS the users have a different concept for forecast date. In order to be able to trigger historical runs, without confusing the user the following be done is that in the python script of the model, the forecast date is overwritten such that is becomes the start date (therefore, bypassing the forecast date information from FEWS). That can be done as following:
def pre(self):
super().pre()
self.io.reference_datetime = self.timeseries_import.start_datetime
...
Pickle
RTC-Tools is creating a pickle at the first run to store the data about the model. (You can find it in the model folder). During the following runs the pickle is first compared to the model, and if the model has not changed the pickle is used. It makes the runs faster. However, if the pickle is created from another machine, it is not compatible with the current version. For this reason it is better not to zip it in the model folder. In order to keep it it can be created an exception when purging.
Enesmbles
RTC-Tools does not run if the ensemble id is in the timeseries_import.xml file. Therefore "<ensembleMemberFormat>hide</ensembleMemberFormat>" should be used in the general adapter.
