PLEXOS Cloud: A Year of Innovation and Growth in 2023

As we bid farewell to 2023, it's time to reflect on the incredible journey we had with PLEXOS Cloud in 2023.  Last year was marked by innovation and customer-driven enhancements. Before diving into the details of the 11 key releases in 2023, let's first examine some significant growth metrics for PLEXOS Cloud.

• 170%+ growth in PLEXOS Cloud users
• 1,900%+ increase in time spent using PLEXOS Cloud
• 1M+ API calls triggered using the Command Line Interface (CLI)
• 5M+ events generated in the PLEXOS Cloud interface.

New Product Tiers: Aligning to Your Needs

We introduced two tiers of PLEXOS Cloud to cater to diverse user needs. The Simulate tier is designed for users seeking flexible cloud compute and versioning capabilities, providing a cost-effective solution for efficient simulations.

Our Analytics tier, in addition to Simulate capabilities, provides more comprehensive tools for those who need advanced analysis and data interpretation. This advanced tier equips analysts with specialized tools to evaluate simulation output, using maps, ad-hoc grids, configurable reports, powerful BI reports, and offers a comprehensive view that facilitates effective communication with stakeholders.

Simulation Monitoring Dashboard: Visualize the Log

The Simulation Monitoring Dashboard helps users monitor the progress of their simulations in real time, offering a visual display of key outputs instead of needing to search through the log. The ability to view these critical metrics in real time allows analysts to make informed decisions on the fly. When outputs don't align with expectations, analysts can take immediate action by canceling the simulation, preventing the unnecessary expenditure of valuable time and resources.

BI Analytics: Unleashing the Power of Data

Launched in early 2023, BI Analytics was added to PLEXOS Cloud - a feature designed to streamline the workflow of creating compelling dashboards and reports. This enhancement allows organizations to save time, as they no longer need to export data from PLEXOS, manipulate it into a reporting friendly format, and build custom reports in third party tools. BI Analytics simplifies the reporting process, enabling users to build complex and visually appealing reports and dashboards directly within our platform, and to reuse these reports for different Models and Studies. Teams can leverage their MS Power BI skills to create reports directly against PLEXOS outputs, making the process simple and convenient for everyone.

Executive View: A Strategic Perspective

The output of our Xcelerate Customer Hackathon, Executive View offers a solution to communication challenges between users, managers, and executives. Executive View is an intuitive reporting and analytics interface designed for decision makers. With real-time insights and customizable dashboards, analysts can easily communicate with decision-makers directly in PLEXOS Cloud.

Map Improvements: Navigating Complexity with Ease

We continued to improve our Map capabilities, allowing users to visualize their network and easily see outputs animate over time. Analysts can now view all classes on the map and configure their own graph or visualization to pinpoint areas of interest and make informed decisions with ease.

Output Grid Improvements: Enhancing Performance and Efficiency

The Output Grid is a query tool to help analysts view data in a grid. Throughout the year we rolled out significant improvements to the grid, including support for additional output classes, a powerful pivot view, faster performance, and a major increase in the number of supported records. These improvements give analysts more ways to view and analyze output to understand their modeling progress.

The Marketplace: Your One-Stop Shop for Content

The PLEXOS Cloud Marketplace is a centralized hub for all things PLEXOS Cloud. Analysts can review and add content easily to their tenant including Solution Reports, BI Reports, Excel Add-In Templates, and Playbooks. Playbooks are a new type of content that bundle together everything you need for your Study. A Playbook not only includes the input data, Models, and Scenarios, but also Solution output Reports and other content, facilitating a quick start for users in training or specific modeling use cases. The Marketplace gives you content that can easily be configured to meet your specific needs and leverages all the features of PLEXOS Cloud.

Usage-Based Pricing: Pay Only for What You Need

Our Usage-Based Pricing model is a new pricing option where customers purchase credits that are used to pay for simulation core hours. Rather than being limited to a fixed number of cores, customers can scale their usage up to hundreds of cores at a time and utilize their credits as needed throughout their contract period. A credit is equivalent to a core hour and can be used for small simulations on 2-core machines or for larger more complex simulations on 64-core machines.

We’ve seen strong adoption of this new offering, and new customers seem to prefer this more flexible pricing option.

Aurora on PLEXOS Cloud: Run Aurora Simulations on Cloud Infrastructure

The latest release, Aurora 15, enhances energy sector analytics on the PLEXOS Cloud platform, aiding the shift to renewable energy. This version introduces simulations hosted in the cloud, which negates the need for specialized, high-powered computing equipment, thus offering more computational versatility. Its main features include a centralized repository for collaborative studies, an intuitive desktop interface, and reports of improved efficiency from early users. Additional improvements encompass adaptable computing resources, version control, and a choice of solvers. Energy Exemplar facilitates a seamless transition for clients adopting this platform, emphasizing Aurora 15's role in improving cloud-based energy simulation efficiency and collaboration within the energy sector.

As 2023 draws to a close, we recognize the key milestones achieved by PLEXOS Cloud. This year was marked by significant developments including the introduction of new product tiers, the launch of the Simulation Monitoring Dashboard, and the integration of BI Analytics. Our focus on enhancing Map capabilities and the Output Grid reflects our commitment to continual improvement and innovation. The release of Aurora on PLEXOS Cloud represents a notable advancement in cloud-based energy simulations, aligning with our goal to lead in the energy sector technology.

As we conclude this remarkable year, we thank our users, partners, and the entire PLEXOS community for their support. We look forward to continued innovation and remain committed to delivering cutting-edge solutions in 2024!