Vintage-Based Formulations in Multi-Year Investment Modelling for Energy Systems

Abstract: This paper reviews two established formulations for modelling multi-year energy investments: the simple method, which aggregates all capacity regardless of commissioning year, and the vintage method, which explicitly tracks investments by year to capture differences in technical parameters over time. While the vintage method improves modelling fidelity, it significantly increases model size. To address this, we propose a novel compact formulation that maintains the ability to represent year-specific characteristics while reducing the dimensionality of the model. The proposed compact formulation is implemented in the open-source model TulipaEnergyModel.jl and offers a tractable alternative for detailed long-term energy system planning.