Electricity Pricing and Production in EPAUS9R

[eorear86]

Hi All,

I am new to this forum but I am hoping someone can assist by addressing my question below. I am not sure if it is helpful, but I am using the EPAUS9R database. 

(1) I notice there appears to be five time slices for each season. For example, for Winter, we have "W", "WDAM", "WDPM", "WN", and "WP". However, I cannot figure out what the "W" time slice represents. In the case of electricity production, would this capture electricity produced by technologies that operate 24 hrs/day as opposed to only operating during a particular time slice? If so, why do we have shadow prices for each of the other time slices but not "W"? In other words, in the case of Winter, I have shadow values (EQ_CombalM) for "WDAM", "WDPM", "WN", and "WP", but not "W".


(2) As it relates to electricity production, what is the difference between "VAR_Comprd" and "VAR_FOut" when determining total production? When I view these flows at the national level, I am getting two different values and I cannot figure out why.

[Antti-L]

I am sure you have read the TIMES documentation: Documentation_for_the_TIMES_Model-Part-II.pdf

See Section 2.2.2.2 Timeslices, and recall that the timeslices form a hierarchy. I am not familiar with the EPAUS9R model, but I would presume that the timeslice "W" is for Winter (a season), and that "WDAM", "WDPM", "WN", and "WP" are DAYNITE timeslices under the Winter season.

See also Section 5.5 VAR_COMPRD(r,t,c,s), and recall that VAR_COMPRD represents the amount of commodity c produced at time period t, timeslice s, after applying the commodity efficiency COM_IE. If you see that it differs from the sum of VAR_FOUT, I can only suspect that you have defined a commodity efficiency.

As to the commodity balance marginals, which I assume you refer to by talking about "shadow prices", they can only be reported for the timeslices that have commodity balance equations. If you define a commodity at the DAYNITE level, the balance equations are of course only at the DAYNITE level, as it would not make sense to define them also at the SEASON level.

[eorear86]

Thanks! This is extremely helpful.