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Hi,
I've created a section in my TIMES model for Brazil which produces bulk chemicals like ethylene en propylene. However, two strange things happen when I run the model.
1) The demand for ethylene is behaving strangely when I check the results in BE. For the base year it's okay but for 2010 it's lower, 2015 is okay again but afterwards first it's slightly lower and for the final 4 timesteps it's exactly 60% of the final demand (input is exogenously). When I check the data with the commodity master in FE it's correct.
2) New technologies are appearing too soon. One of the new technologies that kick in is starting in 2015, while the start year of the technology is set at 2030. Again in the process master it seems to be correct.
Does someone have a clue how to solve these issues?
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A couple of points you could check:
Is ethylene defined as DEM or MAT?
Older versions of TIMES may not take the demand projection into account unless it is DEM (demand), because that was the original design.
Are the start years of the new techs defined by NCAP_START or by PRC_NOFF?
Again, old versions of TIMES do not support NCAP_START at all, and so it would be ignored.
Hence, perhaps you could state the version of TIMES you are using (and VEDA, too)?
Check the TIMES version from the Listing file, right above the Include File summary.
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14-10-2016, 08:09 PM
(This post was last modified: 14-10-2016, 08:15 PM by Tjerk.)
(14-10-2016, 06:01 PM)Antti-L Wrote: A couple of points you could check:
Is ethylene defined as DEM or MAT?
Older versions of TIMES may not take the demand projection into account unless it is DEM (demand), because that was the original design.
Are the start years of the new techs defined by NCAP_START or by PRC_NOFF?
Again, old versions of TIMES do not support NCAP_START at all, and so it would be ignored.
Hence, perhaps you could state the version of TIMES you are using (and VEDA, too)?
Check the TIMES version from the Listing file, right above the Include File summary.
Thanks for the quick reply, Antti!
I made two commodities for ethylene: the normal one (MAT) and the demand version (DEM) with a DMD process inbetween. I use TIMES version 4.1.0, VFE 4.4.8, VBE 4.9.3
Start years are using NCAP_START. So perhaps I use an old version....? But it seems to work for other processes.
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14-10-2016, 08:21 PM
(This post was last modified: 14-10-2016, 09:03 PM by Antti-L.)
Sorry, but you looked for the version at the wrong line. The correct TIMES version number is right above the Include File Summary in the listing file. The latest TIMES version is 4.0.0, and so version 4.1.0 is impossible for TIMES. (It is some dummy number from Veda).
Anyway, if the demand is DEM, then the COM_PROJ parameter is taken into account, regardless of the TIMES version.
More information would thus be needed. Of course, you can also check the commodity balance equation directly from the listing file.
Concerning the start years, if your TIMES version is 3.4.5 or above, then NCAP_START is taken into account.
[EDIT:] It would be easy to resolve both issues, if you could provide a test model that reproduces the problems.
For example, try reproducing them in the DEMO model, and if you succeed in doing that, then post that test model here.
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(14-10-2016, 08:21 PM)Antti-L Wrote: Sorry, but you looked for the version at the wrong line. The correct TIMES version number is right above the Include File Summary in the listing file. The latest TIMES version is 4.0.0, and so version 4.1.0 is impossible for TIMES. (It is some dummy number from Veda).
Anyway, if the demand is DEM, then the COM_PROJ parameter is taken into account, regardless of the TIMES version.
More information would thus be needed. Of course, you can also check the commodity balance equation directly from the listing file.
Concerning the start years, if your TIMES version is 3.4.5 or above, then NCAP_START is taken into account.
[EDIT:] It would be easy to resolve both issues, if you could provide a test model that reproduces the problems.
For example, try reproducing them in the DEMO model, and if you succeed in doing that, then post that test model here.
Hi Antti,
To come back on this. I managed to solve both problems eventually.
Problem #1: the Ethylene demand was indeed a process definition issue. The process to make PLA was linked directly to the demand commodity of ethylene, rather than to the standard ethylene commodity.
Problem #2: this was rather tricky. The start year was not picked up for some new technologies. After a while I noticed that this happened only to techs from two new SubRES files I created. The ones from the original SubRES were working fine. I copied some of the non-working techs to this file and it worked. So finally I put everything in one SubRES file and everything is working perfectly fine
But still I find it strange why it doesn't pick it up from the other SubRES files...
