Report only annual flow data for ENV commodities

[pauldodds]

I'm running a model with a substantial number of timeslices, which produces very large GDX files.

TIMES has an option to aggregate commodity reporting to the ANNUAL level using RPT_FLOTS.  However, I would like to know how a small number of commodities at DAYNITE level (e.g. the electricity load curve).  As far as I am aware, there are no methods for choosing which commodities are output at ANNUAL level.  There's two options that might be useful for this situation:

1) To be able to supply a set with a list of commodities to be output at their flow TSLVL level, and to output the rest as ANNUAL flows.

2) There are many ENV commodities tracked at a DAYNITE timeslice level in our model, which I'm only interested to know at an annual level.  An option to set RPT_FLOTS to ANNUALENV, so that only ENV commodities are output at an ANNUAL level, might be easier to implement than and also effective.

What do you think?  Is this a useful area for development?

[Antti-L]

Currently there are three options for reporting process flows at desired timeslice levels:

1) Report process flows at the process flow timeslices (default)
2) Report process flows at the commodity timeslices
3) Report process flows at the ANNUAL timeslice

Originally, only 1) was supported. Then later, a design for 2) and 3) was suggested and then implemented.
I am sure additional options can be equally well be implemented, if commonly agreed and not too complex. If there is a design for the new feature, and it gets accepted by the Project Head, I see no reason why it could not be implemented.

[pauldodds]

Thanks, Antti. I'll contact George about it.

If anyone else has any suggestions or requests on this topic, then please share them here!

[Antti-L]

Dear Paul,

I noticed you contacted the Project Head already (got a cc copy of the email), but without providing a concrete design.  As an implementation would first require a design anyway, I think it would be more efficient if anyone proposing a new feature could submit the design at the same time. Your option 1) would definitely require a design from you for an implementation to be possible. For the simpler option 2) I could of course propose a candidate sketch design as well:

How about using RPT_OPT(COM_TYPE,'1')=value for requesting ANNUAL level reporting for commodities of type COM_TYPE?  It would also automatically trigger RPT_FLOTS = COM (for other types). Further selection could be made possible by RPT_OPT(NRG_TYPE,'1')=value, where the value would have to be negative to request ANNUAL level reporting for NRG commodities of subtype NRG_TYPE (a positive value is already being used for requesting power level reporting at COM_TS).

[Antti-L]

Small follow-up:

I have now tested the design based on using the following options for requesting ANNUAL level reporting:

 • RPT_OPT(COM_TYPE,'3')=-1  – report all process flows of commodities of type COM_TYPE at the ANNUAL level
 • RPT_OPT(NRG_TYPE,'3')=-1  – report all process flows of type NRG with subtype NRG_TYPE at the ANNUAL level
 • RPT_OPT(NRG_TYPE,'3')=+1  – report all process flows of type NRG with subtype NRG_TYPE at the COM_TSL level (for overriding RPT_OPT(COM_TYPE,'3')=-1 for that subtype)

I think this scheme appears to work reasonably well. Whenever any of these options is used, the default level would be COM_TSL, and only those types/subtypes requested at the annual ANNUAL level will be reported at ANNUAL. These options would not affect the P_Out reporting (power levels, if requested), which will be at COM_TS anyway. Any comments or other suggestions are welcome. If this design would seem ok, I could maybe even volunteer to communicate it with the project head.

[pauldodds]

Hi Antti,

Apologies for taking so long to follow this up - a new baby arrived between your two messages. I didn't know the process for contacting the Project Head to agree changes to the code, so apologies also for that.

I noticed that you've added this option for reporting flows of given commodity types at ANNUAL level to TIMES v4.4.0. I've tested it and it seems to work nicely. I note for others that the TS for flow reporting must be at the commodity level rather than the flow level if you want to use this feature.

Many thanks!

[Antti-L]

Thanks for the follow-up.

I note for others that the TS for flow reporting must be at the commodity level rather than the flow level if you want to use this feature.

I am not sure what you mean. I think you can use the feature regardless of TS for flow reporting being or not being at the commodity level.

I just tested without TS for flow reporting being at the commodity level, using either no additional options, or the following two:
  RPT_OPT('ENV',3)= 1;
  RPT_OPT('ENV',3)=-1;

With no additional options, the emission flows were reported at the DAYNITE level if and only if the process flow was at the DAYNITE level, as expected. In the second case, the emission flows were reported at the DAYNITE level if and only if the emission commodity was defined at the DAYNITE level, as expected. In the third case the emission flows were all reported at the ANNUAL level, as expected. As far as I see, the feature was thus working fully as expected, without requesting TS for flow reporting at the commodity level.

So, I am not seeing why the TS for flow reporting should be at the commodity level rather than the flow level if you want to use this feature. Could you clarify the issue you are seeing?

[pauldodds]

I've investigated further. It turns out that RPT_OPT wasn't doing anything in the case I was testing. Since I had defined emissions at the ANNUAL rather than DAYNITE level, they were aggregated when I set RPT_FLOTS to COM. But it's working now, and I have no idea what I have done to make the difference. So I concur that it works for reporting at the flow level.

For people thinking to use this switch, I set RPT_OPT in the VEDA RUNFile_Tmpl using:
$SET RPT_OPT ENV.3 -1

Thanks for getting back to me on this!