Why Minpower
==============

**Minpower** is designed to make solving :doc:`ED <economic-dispatch>`, :doc:`OPF <optimal-power-flow>`, and :doc:`UC <unit-commitment>` problems simple and intuitive. Traditional approaches to solving these problems are limited by:
    
    *  :abbr:`low level (e.g. C++ or GMPL)` languages
    *  :abbr:`expensive (e.g. CPLEX, GAMMS, AMPL, and AIMMS)` software
    *  being :abbr:`solver dependent (e.g. only CPLEX or only GLPK)`
    
What's good
^^^^^^^^^^^^
**Minpower** 

    * is written in `Python <http://www.python.org/about/>`_
    * is :ref:`free <license>` and :ref:`open source <development>`
    * can use many :doc:`solvers <solvers>`
    * has :abbr:`comparable solution times (For large problems optimization takes most of the solution time. Minpower farms out its optimization to CPLEX with little overhead. Test results coming soon.)` 


Sounds great
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

:doc:`Install Minpower <install>` and try it out.