Unutilized Installed Capacities

[yasmine94]

I am using TIMES to study the transition of the power sector in The Maghreb countries, in the context of their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and Long-term low-emission development strategies (LT-LEDS). I created a scenario NDC-AA which combines the targets of the NDCS until 2030 and LT-LEDS until 2050. For Tunisia (REG1), and Algeria (REG3) the targets are related to the share of RES in the  electricity production, so I set constraints that renewable energy sources (RES) should contribute to a maximum of 30% and 27% by 2030, and 60% and 27% by 2050, for Tunisia and Algeria respectively. Since Algeria did not provide a national strategy for 2050, I used the same targets as for 2030.

the dummies table is empty (IMPDMZ) and (NRZ)!! The results for Tunisia are logical and meet the targets. However for Algeria, the country is only producing 20 PJ of electricity by 2030, less than 1% of the electricity demand in the same year (without any imports). It seems like the country is magically meeting the electricity demand without adequate production. Additionally the model installed new natural gas power plants in Algeria, but they are not being utilized (as its illustrated in figure attached). I am having a serious trouble understanding what the problem is!!

And for Morocco (REG2), the targets as set based on the share of RES of total installed capacities (as is illustrated in figure below). However the results show that the model is only preferring 100% RES instead of NG or coal!!

[Antti-L]

Looks like you have some model debugging to do. 

I can quickly comment on your UC constraints:  None of the constraints UC_RESPRD_RE_REG1, UC_RESPRD_RE_REG3, UC_CAPMAXRES_REG2 appears to be binding, i.e. functional.  Let's try to see how they are formulated:

UC_RESPRD_RE_REG1 for REG1 in 2050:

  VAR_FLO(REG1,2050,[Renewable generation],[ELC+ELCD]) + 0.6 × VAR_COMPRD(REG1,2050,[ELC+ECLD]) ≥ 0

This does not seem to make sense.  You seem to be requiring that the sum of {renewable electricity generation} plus {0.6 × all ELC+ELCD electricity production} must be greater than or equal to zero (which is always the case). Am I missing something?

UC_RESPRD_RE_REG3 for REG3 :  Same issue as for UC_RESPRD_RE_REG1.

UC_CAPMAXRES_REG2  is neither binding (because the RHS constant is missing), but the formulation does not seem to make sense either. For 2050 we seem to have:

  0.82 × VAR_CAP(REG2,2050,[Renewable generation]) ≤ VAR_CAP(REG2,2050,[All generation])

Here, you seem to be requiring that {0.82 × renewable generation capacity} must be less than or equal to {all generation capacity}, which seems meaningless.  But I could of course be missing something, sorry if I am misreading the constraints.