Unit of Capital Cost variables

[orichters]

• Referring to this line in reportEDGET()
• Usual, in REMIND, the Capital Costs refer to some cost per capacity, such as Tech|Electricity|Coal|Pulverised Coal w/o CC|Capital Costs is measured in US$2005/kW
• But Capital Cost|Transport|Pass|Rail is measured in bn US$2005. That seems to be an remind-internal inconsistency in naming whether Capital Cost is just an investment sum or per unit of capacity. Also, I wonder if that should not be a per year value for EDGE-T.

[jmuessel]

If I am not mistaken, in EDGET we usually use as a cost unit $2005/(p or t)km, which we do not change in the reporting script. But, in the reporting you are referring to it is different: Overview:

capCosts <- loadCapCosts(demand_km)
repCapCosts <- reporting(dt = capCosts, mode = "CC")

We then add repCapCosts to the mif file.

In detail: loadCapCosts multiplies costs in $2005/km with demand_km

So capCosts is in $2005

reporting takes capCosts [$2005] as an input, makes no unit changes --> so we end up with $2005

[orichters]

But isn't demand_km in km/yr, and therefore capCost in $2005/yr?

[robertpietzcker]

yes, I agree with Oliver - the unit of the aggregate value calculated from (cost per km) times (km per year) should be bn$2005/yr

Also on the first part - for harmonizing variable names and reducing the potential for misunderstandings, I would call this absolute value something like Energy Investments|Demand|xxx to be in line with current REMIND naming (the IAMC uses Investment|Energy Demand|xxx, but I would prefer to be consistent within REMIND on this)

[jmuessel]

@robertpietzcker I wrote on my non-urgent todo list "Rename CC in reporting, example: Capital Cost|Transport|Pass|Rail --> Energy Investments|Demand|Transport|Pass|Rail"

Could you quickly confirm that this is, what I am supposed to do?

[robertpietzcker]

yes, that would be perfect.

and similarly, check if the units are correct - so "$2005/[p/t]km" for the intensive variable handed to REMIND (in case that is ever reported), and "bn $2005/yr" for the extensive variable that you get when multiplying the intensive variable by the transport volume

[orichters]

The variable has been removed in EDGE-T 2.0.0