Trade¶
Inter-regional trade is declared in the trade-links file,
SuppXLS\Trades\ScenTrade__Trade_Links.xlsx (two underscores). Its tags
declare which regions trade which commodities, and the trade processes
that carry the flows. Data for those processes (costs, bounds,
efficiencies) then goes in trade workbooks, ScenTrade_<name>.xlsx,
with the ordinary insert and update tags.
~TradeLinks¶
The matrix form. The first column's header is the traded commodity, and
its cells list exporting regions; the other column headers are importing
regions. A cell holding 1 (or another non-zero whole number) creates a
link with a generated process name, T<B|U>_<commodity>_<from>_<to>_01;
0 or empty creates none; a cell holding text creates a link and uses
the text as the trade process name. Links to regions that are not in the
model are dropped.
| ~TradeLinks | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ELC | REG1 | REG2 | REG3 |
| REG1 | 1 | ||
| REG2 | 1 | 1 | |
| REG3 | 1 |
The sheet name sets the direction: on a sheet whose name starts with
B, links are bilateral (two-way); on any other sheet they are
unidirectional (exporter → importer). Models usually keep two sheets,
Bi and Uni.
Writing distr in the tag text marks the links as distribution links.
Marketplace regions
A column headed by a market region (for example GBL, which must be a
region of the model), with the same trade process name in the cells of
every participating region, creates one process linking the market
with each of them. TIMES then treats GBL as a marketplace.
~TradeLinks_DINS¶
The row form: one link per row, with explicit commodities on each side.
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
Reg1, Reg2 |
The two regions (may be the same, for links inside a region) |
Comm |
The traded commodity (a label for the link) |
Comm1, Comm2 |
The commodity in Reg1 and in Reg2 |
Tech |
The trade process |
TradeLink |
B (bilateral) or U (unidirectional) |
Use it when the commodity has a different name in each region, or for networks (grid lines, pipelines) where every link is its own process.
~TradeLinks_c1c2¶
A matrix like ~TradeLinks for links where the commodity differs between
the exporting and the importing region. As with ~TradeLinks, the sheet
name sets the direction.
~TradeLinks_Desc¶
Descriptions of the trade processes declared by ~TradeLinks_DINS:
process name and description.
~FI_Process_Trades¶
Declares the characteristics of trade processes (as ~FI_Process does
for other processes): units, timeslice level, description.
~commodity_geo¶
Geographic coordinates of commodity nodes, for drawing grids on a map:
columns region, commodity, lat, lng, shape. It has no effect on
the model data.
Trade workbooks¶
ScenTrade_<name> files hold data for the trade processes, using
~TFM_INS, ~TFM_DINS, ~TFM_UPD and so on. A common pattern is a
~TFM_DINS-AT table with Region, Process, Year and one column per
attribute (ACT_COST, INVCOST, EFF, LIFE, START, …).
Note
Process filters in trade workbooks currently see every process in the model, not only trade processes.
The legacy trade tags ~Trade_Param and ~TradeLinks_GenLinks no
longer have any effect (not recommended).