Availability factor is vintage dependent or not?

[doonggus]

Dear,

I'm a little confused about whether the availability factor is vintage depedent or not.

In the TIMES manual, (http://www.iea-etsap.org/docs/TIMESDoc-Details.pdf)

on page 77, the manual is saying is saying "NCAP_AFA is always assumed to be non-vintage depedent, even if the process is defined as a vintaged one; for vintage-dependent annual availability NCAP_AFS with s=’ANNUAL’ can be used"

also, on page 179, "Annual availability factor similar to NCAP_AFS being specified for the ANNUAL timeslice with the difference that NCAP_AFA is always applied in such a way as if the process is non-vintage dependent, even if it is specified as a vintaged one (prc_vint)."

So, I think, AFS is vintage dependent, but not AFA.

However, in a previous question in this forum, (http://forum.kanors-emr.org/showthread.php?tid=241&pid=809#pid809)

you said, "You don't even need to define the process vintaged in order to use this feature, because the availability factors are capacity-related attributes (the VAR_NCAP variables are always vintaged in TIMES)."

So, I'm confused about this. Is this mean that AFA is also vintage dependent?

If not, could you please show an example to use AFS to implement vintage dependent availability factor?

Thanks!

[Antti-L]

No, AFA is not vintage dependent.

As mentioned, the process does not need to be vintaged in order to vintaged availability-factors, because the availability factors are capacity-related attributes.

So, to define a vintaged ANNUAL availability factor for a process, which is not at the ANNUAL level, you can simply use NCAP_AFS(ANNUAL). But if you want to define vintaged availability factors for the process level timeslices, you need to use NCAP_AF(r,y,p,s,bd) and NCAP_AFX(r,y,p) = 1 (assuming no shaping is wanted). 

[doonggus]

Thank you for your reply!!

In order to use "NCAP_AFS(ANNUAL)" in VEDA, Can I use an attribute like "AFS~ANNUAL~2020" ??

Which means that, I would like to implement...

The capacity installed in 2020 will have availability factor x from 2020 to end of period (e.g. 2050).

[Antti-L]

Yes, but it seems you are suspicious about it?  Do you see a problem with it?

If the process is not at the ANNUAL level, AFS~ANNUAL~2020 =X should give you a lifetime ANNUAL availability factor of X for capacity installed in 2020.

[doonggus]

Okay, Thank you for your help!