Brief Description

VEDA2.0 is a powerful yet user friendly set of tools geared to facilitate the creation, maintenance, browsing, and modification of the large data bases required by complex mathematical and economic models. Also, smart exploration of the results created by such models and the creation of reports. The VEDA system is composed of two major subsystems - VEDA Front-End (VEDA_FE) and VEDA Back-End VEDA_BE).

Overview of the VEDA system for TIMES modeling

Data and assumptions are fed into VEDA that provides input to the TIMES code. VEDA accepts input from a variety of Excel files with different (flexible) structures that are tailored to work efficiently with data intensive models. The TIMES code works in the GAMS environment and produces text output that is read by VEDA. VEDA produces numerical and graphical (mainly via Excel) output for the user.

VEDA is under continuous development, driven by a very strong desire to keep increasing the efficiency and transparency of managing input (and output) of data-intensive models. The vision statement of VEDA applications is to take the drudgery out of modelling. The developer being its first user is a special feature of VEDA. Intimate domain knowledge has obvious advantages for software development.

The system is fundamentally biased towards large-scale multi-region models. It can certainly support small single-region models, but its real power comes into play when modelling several regions together. The primary focus of this system has been on expanding the envelope of possibilities. VEDA uses a support site and a forum to support its users.

VEDA_FE is the outcome of MARKAL and TIMES modeling assignments executed by its developer over the past 15 years. The core ideas formed during the doctoral and post-doctoral work around MARKAL models (1994-1999) when he used FoxPro to get information from Lotus/Excel into MUSS databases. In year 2000, a development team was set up in India and VEDA was first used as a MARKAL shell for the SAGE model of EIA. By 2006, VEDA emerged as the first TIMES shell. As of June 2011, there are licensed VEDA users in 45 countries (109 cities).