Bid Manager Tab

Overview

The Bid Manager tab in iPool Suite is where you create, convert, view, and edit the bid files that iPool uses as market-offer input. Bid Manager reads and writes .bidx bid files — a .bidx file holds a set of price and quantity bands for one or more units across dispatch intervals, plus identifying metadata.

The tab is divided into six sub-tabs: Generator (build a fresh .bidx from raw WESM RTDOE/RTDOR CSV downloads), Aggregator (build day-type typical bid profiles from a historical bid dataset), Viewer / Editor (open an existing .bidx and browse or modify the bids per region, site, or unit), Intelligent Bidding (also known as Dynamic Bidding; apply user-configured actions and condition sets through a fuzzy inference system to generate bids at runtime), Convert Legacy .bid (convert legacy .bid files from iYBidWESM or iBidAgg into .bidx), and Convert Legacy .ibd (convert legacy .ibd files into .ibdx format).

Bid Manager Overview

• 

  Converter

• 

  Generator

• 

  Aggregator

• 

  Viewer/Editor

• 

  Converter

• 

  Generator

Purpose

Use the Bid Manager tab to:

• Generate historical bids — convert raw WESM RTDOE and RTDOR CSV downloads for a chosen date range into a single .bidx file, instead of processing hundreds of raw files by hand.
• Aggregate typical bid profiles — produce day-type bid sets (WORKDAY, SAT, SUN) from a historical bid dataset. Available through the Aggregator sub-tab or the bidmanager-aggregator.exe batch tool.
• View and edit bid stacks — open an existing .bidx, pick a region, site, or unit from the tree, and inspect or edit its bid stack at unit, site, or region level.
• Apply rule-based dynamic bids — configure Actions and Conditions Library rules in Intelligent Bidding (also known as Dynamic Bidding) to generate bid stacks through a fuzzy inference system at runtime in response to system state.
• Convert legacy files — upgrade legacy .bid files (produced by iYBidWESM or iBidAgg) into .bidx so they can be opened by the Viewer/Editor.
• Convert legacy .ibd files — upgrade legacy .ibd files into .ibdx so the Intelligent Bidding system can use them.

Bid Types

Four kinds of bids are documented in this section:

• Historical — bids reconstructed from actual past WESM market data (RTDOE energy bids and RTDOR reserve bids). Produced by the Generator sub-tab.
• Typical — day-type aggregated bid profiles (WORKDAY, SAT, SUN, etc.) built from a historical window, used when a study needs representative rather than exact-historical bid patterns. Produced by the Aggregator sub-tab, or by the bidmanager-aggregator.exe batch tool.
• Custom — manually configured supply and/or demand bids per unit; commonly used for ESS/BESS charging and discharging strategies, or for unit-specific overrides. Custom bids are authored in the Viewer / Editor tab within Bid Manager; see the Custom Bids how-to.
• Dynamic — bids produced by the Intelligent Bidding (also known as Dynamic Bidding) feature, which applies rule-based actions to respond to system state at runtime through a fuzzy inference system (for example, reservoir level, forecast demand, or wind generation). Authored directly in Bid Manager; see Intelligent Bidding.

Historical, Typical, Custom (via Viewer / Editor), and Dynamic bids are all produced in Bid Manager; see the Custom Bids how-to for steps.

The Viewer/Editor can display both Energy Bid Offers and Reserve Bid Offers from an open .bidx. An Energy/Reserve view-mode toggle on the Bid Stack and Graph tabs switches between the two; when Reserve is selected, four sub-tabs appear — Frequency Reserve, Regulation Up, Regulation Down, and Dispatchable Reserve — with Frequency Reserve open by default. The default view is Energy. The Detail tab is not affected by the toggle — it shows unit/site/region identity and a per-unit Bid Summary that has no Energy/Reserve distinction.

When to Use It

Use the Bid Manager tab in these situations:

• Before running a historical or backcasting simulation — generate the .bidx file for the target period from RTDOE and RTDOR downloads.
• When preparing typical bid inputs for forecasting or scenario studies — aggregate a historical window into WORKDAY, SAT, and SUN typical bids.
• When reviewing or adjusting bids on disk — open an existing .bidx to inspect a unit's bid stack, apply unit-level edits (scale prices or quantities, fill a value into a range of cells, bulk-enter a rectangle of bands), or apply region- or site-level transforms in one action (proportional price shifts, availability scaling, clamping into a market's allowed price band).
• When setting up rule-based bidding strategies — configure the Intelligent Bidding Actions and Conditions Library for units that require dynamic bids at runtime.
• When migrating legacy .bid files — convert them to .bidx so the current Viewer/Editor can open them.
• When migrating legacy .ibd files — convert them to .ibdx so the Intelligent Bidding system can load them.

Basic Steps

The most common first-time path is producing a fresh historical .bidx with the Generator sub-tab:

1

Check Defaults

Ensure Defaults.csv is updated with the correct database path and that Defaults has been initialised.

2

Confirm WESM Files

Confirm that the required RTDOE and RTDOR raw WESM files for the target dates are present in the WESM FILES folder.

3

Open Suite

Open Suite (iPoolSuite.exe, typically installed at C:\Program Files\iPool\ or %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\iPool\) and switch to the Bid Manager tab.

4

Open Generator

Open the Generator sub-tab, then set the start date and ndays for the target period.

5

Confirm Output Path

Confirm the output path points to the correct Bids folder.

6

Click Create

Click Create.

7

Verify Output

Verify the generated .bidx file appears in the output folder.

Each sub-tab has its own detailed procedure — see the Generator, Aggregator, Viewer/Editor, Intelligent Bidding, Converter, and Convert Legacy .ibd pages for full steps.

Key Controls

Control	Description
Generator sub-tab	Builds a new .bidx from raw WESM RTDOE and RTDOR CSV downloads. Inputs: start date, ndays, output path. Click Create to run.
Aggregator sub-tab	Produces typical-day bid profiles (WORKDAY, SAT, SUN) from a historical bid dataset. Also runnable as a batch script (RunBidAgg.bat driving bidmanager-aggregator.exe) for automated processing.
Viewer/Editor sub-tab	Opens an existing .bidx for browse and edit. The left-hand tree groups units in a region → site → unit hierarchy; each unit is identified by a short DUID (Dispatchable Unit IDentifier). An Energy / Reserve view-mode toggle on the Bid Stack and Graph tabs switches between Energy Bid Offers and Reserve Bid Offers; under Reserve, four sub-tabs appear — Frequency Reserve, Regulation Up, Regulation Down, and Dispatchable Reserve — defaulting to Frequency Reserve. The default view is Energy. The toggle does not appear on the Detail tab.
Intelligent Bidding sub-tab	Automates bid submission by applying user-configured actions (rules) and condition sets. Two sub-tabs: Actions (define and manage bidding rules) and Conditions Library (manage reusable condition sets).
Converter sub-tab	Converts legacy .bid files (produced by iYBidWESM or iBidAgg) into .bidx. Inputs: single-file / one-folder mode, output path. Click Convert to run.
Convert Legacy .ibd sub-tab	Converts legacy .ibd bid files into .ibdx format. Inputs: Mode (Single file / Folder), Include subfolders (folder mode only), Market (WESM or AEMO), Output folder. Also available on the command line via iPoolSuite.exe -ibd2ibdx; see CLI Reference.
Save (Viewer/Editor)	Writes the current in-memory edits into the open .bidx, overwriting the previous version. A confirmation dialog opens when there are unsaved edits or unresolved validation issues. Reports Saved ✓ on success.
Save As (Viewer/Editor)	Writes a fresh .bidx at a new path chosen via file picker, then makes that new file the working file.
Submit (Viewer/Editor)	Header button. Disabled until a .bidx is open.
Export (Viewer/Editor)	Header button. Disabled until a .bidx is open.
Update (Viewer/Editor)	Runs an internal check that each unit's prices are strictly ascending, flags out-of-order rows, and reports Validated ✓ — prices strictly ascending. on pass. Does not write to disk.
History / Pending (Viewer/Editor)	Header buttons that toggle the Edit History and Pending Changes drawers. Ctrl+Shift+H also toggles the Edit History drawer.

Expected Result

A valid .bidx bid file in the project's Bids folder, ready to be loaded by iPool for a simulation run.

For Viewer/Editor edits, unit-level changes commit to the open .bidx on Save (or to a new file on Save As). Region- and site-level transforms in the Transform All in Scope panel write directly to the open .bidx on Apply, without a separate Save step.