Interpretting results

[Mia McLachlan]

Hi all, we have managed to get our daft model running and are now at the stage of interpretting the results. Some questions have arisen:

1. When looking at the raw results in MCACapacity.csv we observe the 'capacity' for each technology for each year of interest. Is this the Total Capacity available for each tech (rather than the addition)?

2. On the same file we notice that for some years the capacity for one technolgy is split into multiple rows with unique 'index' values. What do these indices refer to and can these capacities be summed to get the total capacity for that technology in that year? I believe they represent unique assets but if so I don't understand the decision making logic of MUSE to expand different assets at different points.

3. Currently our 'time_framework' only includes years 2020, 2025, 2030, 2035, 2040, 2045 and 2050. Does this mean that capacity can only be increased/decomissioned at intervals of 5 years and therefore we should increase the granularity? 

4. Is there way to identify which contraints in the simulation are active?

5. I have also been looking at the 'Capacity' folder in results and I am unsure the Year.csv files differ to the aforementioned file.

Thanks in advance

Best wishes,

Mia & Avi

[Alexander Kell]

Hi both,

That's great that you've got a draft model running!

In answer to your questions:

1. Yes, this is the Total capacity of each technology.

2. Yes, these are unique assets. The reason for having different assets is just for further information, but it doesn't necessarily have to be important for your project.

3. Yes, that's correct. You could increase the granularity if you think it would be useful. I would start with a granularity of 5 years first, and increase it later if you think we are losing some important information due to this.

4. MUSE won't tell you which constraints are active, but you can work these out from looking at the capacity results if necessary. It's not perfect, but if you change the capacity constraints and run the scenario again you may see a change in investments, and then you know that the constraints were active.

5. Don't worry about the "capacity" folder for now, the MCACapacity.csv will suffice.

Thanks,

Alex

[Mia McLachlan]

Got it thanks!

Further to the questions, is there a way to see the demand profile or do we just have access to the supply profile within the 'Supply' folder?

Best, 

Mia and Avi

[Alexander Kell]

The demand profile will be what you set in the "Preset" folder. It should increase linearly between the years not input. But yes, if you want to see the demand profile, the Supply folder will be the easiest way to see it.

[Mia McLachlan]

Hi, hope you have had a nice weeken,

We wanted to be able to compare installed capacity to demand but we can't seem to get the numbers to match up. When summing all installed capacity of assets for 2020, this value is smaller than the total demand in 2020 - something doesn't seem quite right. Do the values for installed capacity represent capacity for the whole year rather than by timeslice?

Thank you

Mia & Avi

[Alexander Kell]

Hi both,

Hope you had a nice weekend too :).

If you're starting the model in 2020 then the total starting capacity will be defined by yourselves in the ExistingCapacity.csv file. It may be the case that you need to increase the capacity in ExistingCapacity, or lower demand so that they match for the base year.

If you're starting earlier than 2020 then relaxing the constraints in the technodata may help.

Thanks,

Alex

[Mia McLachlan]

Ahh yes, using the ExisitingCapacity.csv, we realised we had a unit conversion issue but all sorted now! Installed capacity now sufficiently exceeds demand but there appears to be a large discrepancy between supply and demand. Installed capacity*thermal efficiency for each tech is much larger than the demand profile assuming linear growth from 2020-2050. Perhaps the active constraint is not meeting demand?

Thanks, 

Avi & Mia

[Mia McLachlan]

Further to this we have analysed the 'Supply' folder and observe a much closer relationship between supply and demand. Our question instead would be what is the relationship between installed capacity and supply?

Best,

Avi & Mia

[Alexander Kell]

Ah, great.

The total capacity must be bigger than total demand to take into account the utilisation factor as well. Does it still not add up when you take this into account?

Best wishes,

Alex

[Mia McLachlan]

Ah, if we account only for utilisation factor, the numbers are a lot closer together but adjusting for both utilisation factor and thermal efficiency gives numbers smaller than supply and demand.

Thanks again,

Avi & Mia

[Mia McLachlan]

One other thing that might be a problem in terms of scale is whether 'efficiency' should be a percentage or a fraction on the technodata.csv? Please see screenshot attached:

[Alexander Kell]

Thermal efficiency is the amount of fuel required to output one unit of energy from a technology. So it doesn't need to be taken into account when comparing supply and demand.

Efficiency should be a percentage in the technodata.csv

Thanks,

Alex

[Mia McLachlan]

Okay great, that clears things up, thank you!