Bid Manager Tab

Overview

The Bid Manager tab in iEnergy 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 four working areas: 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), and Converter (convert legacy .bid files from iYBidWESM or iBidAgg into .bidx). All four areas produce or consume .bidx files rooted in a per-project Bids folder.

What It Is Used For

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.
• Convert legacy files — upgrade legacy .bid files (produced by iYBidWESM or iBidAgg) into .bidx so they can be opened by the Viewer/Editor.

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 a separate application, documented on the Custom Bids page in this section.
• Dynamic — bids that respond to system state at runtime through a fuzzy inference system (for example, reservoir level, forecast demand, or wind generation). Dynamic bids are authored in a separate application launched from iPool, documented on the Dynamic Bids page in this section.

Historical and Typical bids are produced by the Bid Manager tab itself. Custom and Dynamic bids are documented alongside for reference.

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 migrating legacy .bid files — convert them to .bidx so the current Viewer/Editor can open them.

Basic Steps

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

1. Ensure Defaults.csv is updated with the correct database path and that Defaults has been initialised.
2. Confirm that the required RTDOE and RTDOR raw WESM files for the target dates are present in the WESM FILES folder.
3. Open Suite (iEnergySuite.exe, typically installed at C:\Program Files\iEnergySuite\) and switch to the Bid Manager tab.
4. Open the Generator sub-tab, then set the start date and ndays for the target period.
5. Confirm the output path points to the correct Bids folder.
6. Click Create.
7. Verify the generated .bidx file appears in the output folder.

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

Important Fields, Buttons, and Options

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).
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.
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.