WITCH-SWITCH scenarios

WITCH-SWITCH scenarios

As discussed in the last Research post, in the past weeks Marco, Simone, and I focused on the WITCH runs aimed at carrying out a comparison with the SWITCH scenarios for China.

I remind that the objective of these runs is twofold:

  1. empirically validate the new modeling of grid and storage in WITCH, checking its results against those obtained with a more detailed energy model;
  2. build the scenario portfolio for the dynamics of decarbonization activity (last spring I had already run the old version of WITCH to this purpose, but I eventually thought that the exercise would be much more relevant if carried out with the new model version).

The activity took a bit more than expected. On the one hand, we had to dedicate some time to review the new storage and grid modeling in WITCH that we had finished in October: small details to be fixed always pop up in these occasions. On the other hand, some work has been required to align WITCH with the SWITCH assumptions. In fact such exercises (especially in the dynamics of decarbonization perspective) are valuable if the working hypotheses of the two models are compatible, so that the possible differences in results can be attributed to the different model structure and not to different cost assumptions or other similar aspects. I must say that most hypotheses were in line with WITCH’s ones, although in a few cases we had to slightly adjust some parameters.

Concerning the first objective, it was not possible to fully and directly compare the storage results due to the differences in the two model fundamentals (e.g. the modeling of gas combustion turbines in SWITCH, that are missing in WITCH), but abstracting from these differences with some thought assumptions, their behavior turns out to be similar. On the other hand, results showed a very good level of agreement as far as grid is concerned.

The dynamics of decarbonization issue is more complex and a number of aspects must be considered. This analysis is still ongoing and will take the next weeks, but I think that I will complete at least the core part in the very next days.

Indeed, I MUST complete it in the very next days, as next November 29 I will give a talk at RAEL summarizing the activities that I carried out throughout this year. In that presentation I will discuss these aspects regarding the dynamics of decarbonization as well as the comparison of the grid modeling that I mentioned above.

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