IRE_XBND constraint problem

[Antti-L]

The TIMES IRE_XBND attribute can be used for specifying a bound on the total imports/exports of a commodity to/from a region ar. The region ar can be any region.

I have tried to specify such an IRE_XBND for an external region in VEDA-FE, but thus far without success. I can see that the attribute works for internal regions, where Other_indexes contains only the IMP/EXP label.  But how can I specify it for external regions? Should the external region in this case be specified in the Other_indexes column, such as MINRNW~EXP or MARS~IMP, or somewhere else?

Could someone present a working example, involving an external region?  Amit?

Thanks!
Antti

[AKanudia]

So far, the external regions MINRNW and IMPEXP are only used internally by VEDA (to specify exogenous IRE processes). I could have these work as valid regions when specified explicitly. Of course, they would NOT be added to the default list of regions that VEDA uses when region is not specified or in the AllRegions column.

Would this resolve your issue?

[Antti-L]

Ok Amit, this is good to know.

I have model versions where e.g. USA can be either an internal or external region. And in both versions all the scenario files have USA in the region headers. So, if USA would be always treated as a "valid region", this would apparently mean that all the data for USA would be imported in both model versions, even when it is an external region?

Maybe one should then just leave it as it is, and use user constraints in VEDA-FE for this purpose?

[Edit:] Or maybe the external regions can be treated as valid regions only in Trade Scenarios? And when writing out the DD files VEDA-FE would include the IRE_XBND attributes, but would filter out any other data specified for external regions if the attribute expects an internal region?

Thanks,

Antti

[AKanudia]

Yes, I guess you are proposing to sum over internal regions via UCs, which would be equivalent to IRE_XBND on external regions.

But your other idea is interesting too: treat external regions as valid regions only for certain attributes. Do you specify other attributes for external regions, besides IRE_XBND? I will see if we need to restrict this to Trade scenarios or if we can allow it in all places.