"Optimization" option in GUI

[adam-a-a]

For the new user, the first question when using the GUI would be--what are we optimizing when selecting "optimization"? For us, it is obvious that cost optimization, and thus minimization of the LCOW, is our default (and usually only) option. However, there may be cases where the user would want to explore minimization of energy consumption or some other objective function. We should explicitly state "cost optimization" in the GUI and perhaps even display the objective function for clarity.

Note: this question came up at a recent WaterTAP training workshop which comprised several nearly 20 participants.

@dangunter @MichaelPesce

[adam-a-a]

Another thought is that as we increase flexibility in the GUI and to with our flowsheets, we might want to have a couple default options, such as cost optimization and minimize energy consumption, to start.

[avdudchenko]

I think this might be better addressed by dev providing different build options for different objectives - e.g. when user loads a flowsheet it provides a brief description of how the flowsheet is configured - such as defualt objective function (and options to pick other function, and so on).

I do not think we should have UI define objective functions for flowsheet - this should be on the flowsheet dev to provide instead.

• Before loading the screen we should have a "flowsheet description and build options page" that provides a how to on flowsheet, and also options that can be changed by the user.