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irena-flextool / flextool

IRENA FlexTool is an energy and power systems model for understanding the role of variable power generation in future energy systems.
https://www.irena.org/energytransition/Energy-System-Models-and-Data/IRENA-FlexTool
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Harmonize all cost parameters and results? #198

Open nelliputkonen opened 2 months ago

nelliputkonen commented 2 months ago

It's a bit confusing that in general costs are given in CUR/MW or CUR/MWh, but investments are given in CUR/kW and CUR/kWh. Similarly, the cost results are given in MCUR. This can easily lead to modelling errors and results can be difficult to interpret, especially when using something else than MW's as base unit in the model. In my opinion, it would be more straightforward if the model would not make any scaling decisions for the user, but all inputs would be CUR/energy_unit and all cost outputs would simply be CUR. What do you think?

jkiviluo commented 1 month ago

Current convention is following the commonly used tradition in energy/power system modelling. It probably has been taken into use due to the difference in scale in investment costs vs other costs and this way the numbers are in a nice range (generally between 0 and 1000).

One can scale the inputs as long as the relation stays the same: investment costs are 1000 times smaller than other costs. So, if the currency has really low value, one can use e.g. 1000 lires as the currency unit (instead of 1 lire).

But point taken, there is potential for confusion here.