Development of times-france and tiam-fr prospective modeling tools

The prospective modeling research program of the Centre for Applied Mathematics is based on optimizing a technical-economic representation of the energy system with the help of the MARKAL-TIMES model (market allocation). MARKAL-TIMES is a methodological corpus developed in the context of the ETSAP (Energy Technology Systems Analysis Program), an international consortium under the aegis of the International Energy Agency (for which the CMA is the French government’s official representative to the IEA/ETSAP). The CMA is notably developing these models on a national (TIMES-France) and global scale (TIAM-FR).

TIMES-France

Manager: Edi ASSOUMOU

Long-term planning models from the family of MARKAL/TIMES models (MARKet ALlocation/ The Integrated Markal Efom System) are at the center of the Chair’s modeling activities. This approach is based on optimizing a technical-economic representation of the energy system. The methodological corpus on which it is based has been developed within ETSAP (Energy Technology Systems Analysis Program), an international cooperation program under the aegis of the International Energy Agency, IEA.

The geographical deployment perimeters of this approach at the CMA are France, Europe and the World. The CMA has invested particularly in developing the unique France model, for which developments and improvements have been permanent since 2003. First of all focusing on the electricity issue, the model has successively evolved towards an overall representation of the energy system, then towards a refinement of certain subsectors or modules. These ongoing evolutions concern biomass, the electricity industry, residential sectors and transport and the revision of technological databases among others. The TIMES-France model enables the implications of the different energy scenarios to be assessed for France: notably factor 4, the carbon value and the phase-out of nuclear reactors. In 2013 it was used in the context of research conducted with IRENA to assess the conditions of a pairing up of the market share of renewable energies.

TIAM-FR

Manager: Sandrine SELOSSE

The CMA is also developing the TIAM-FR model (Times Integrated Assessment Model) that is the French version of the global TIAM model, of the family of ETSAP-TIMES models.
With the help of the TIAM-FR model, carbon constraint scenarios have been developed to highlight the regional impacts of global issues committed to reducing CO2 emissions in different regions around the world (post COP15 commitments). Alongside these scenarios, technology deployment scenarios have been developed, for example carbon capture and sequestration, which allow the technical-economic plausibility of climate policies to be discussed.
Some convincing research: CO2 atmospheric concentration, world and regional GHG emissions, the marginal cost of CO2 in a context of limited emissions, the global and regional energy mix, technological investments (CSC, renewable energies), according to different regions around the world (15) and different business activities.

The collaboration with the Laboratoire d’Economie d’Orléans (LEO) introduced back in 2011 by Sandrine SELOSSE to analyze different carbon capture technology deployment scenarios in biomass power plants (BECCS) and to discuss the incentive mechanisms of this, continued on in 2013. TIAM-FR has therefore been extended to take different carbon and biomass combustion technologies into account among others (with or without CO2 capture technology) and potential regional carbon sequestration scenarios (onshore, offshore) have been studied with resulting publications. In the context of a consortium involving 10 European research centers that use the TIAM model aimed at developing the ETSAP’s official version of the TIAM model, CMA’s contribution concerned breaking down the African electricity industry into three sub-regions to take the economic and energy contrasts within Africa more into account. Analyses on the issue of energy access of these sub-regions were also carried out and presented during international conferences, notably the COP 19 in Warsaw.