Outline of MARKAL (MED)
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Outline of MARKAL (MED) Bottom up, technology rich, economic-engineeringenvironment model of whole energy system Long time frames Detailed, time series input data Constraints Resource availability Emission constraints (e.g. CO2) Least cost optimisation Technologies Resources Energy service demands ‘What if...?’ assumptions, integrated through ‘scenario’ approach, and use of sensitivity analysis Costs not prices Discounted cost to whole energy system Elastic Demand version (MED) includes energy service demand reduction as option to maximise ‘overall social welfare’ (consumer + producer surplus) ‘Marginal CO2 Price’ not directly equivalent to ETS price Perfect foresight ‘Sees’ all future costs and optimises for whole period Advantages and limitations of MARKAL Advantages Limitations Whole energy system- cross sectoral interactions Trade offs- use of limited resources or sinks Detailed deployment figures easily translated into ‘real world’ implications for decarbonisation, raising questions about feasibility and ‘first steps’ Economic detail addresses questions of optimal deployment of limited funds Elastic Demand version allows some consideration of role of demand reduction in carbon constrained futures Whole energy system view means it does not represent individual investor behaviour Perfect foresight means it does not consider effect of uncertainty or ‘shocks’ Whole energy system view means lack of geographical disaggregation – this limits insights into infrastructure Long time frame means lack of temporal disaggregation- this limits insights into e.g. electricity planning on hours and minutes scale Remedies Use of multiple tools Other models (macro-econometric, network models) Other ‘qualitative approaches’ (behavioural psychology, political science etc) All tools provide insights and raise questions Understand difference between these things... Where one tool stops, another needs to pick up.... Scenario framework can be used for ‘internally consistent’ integration of multiple tools
