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ReMIND-R

ReMIND-R is a global multi-regional model incorporating the economy, the climate system and a detailed representation of the energy sector. It solves for an inter-temporal Pareto optimum in economic and energy investments in the model regions, fully accounting for interregional trade in goods, energy carriers and emissions allowances. ReMIND-R allows for the analysis of technology options and policy proposals for climate mitigation. The model is the modeling tool used in Research Domain III, and is applied in various projects like ADAM, RECIPE, AME, EMF-27, AMPERE, RoSE etc. ReMIND-R stands for 'Refined Model of Investments and Technological Development - Regionalized' and it is programmed in GAMS.

 

remind structure

Figure 1. Overall structure of ReMIND-R

 

Figure 1. provides an overview of the general structure of ReMIND‐R. The macro‐economic core of ReMIND‐R is a Ramsey‐type optimal growth model in which intertemporal global welfare is optimized subject to equilibrium constraints. It considers 11 world regions and explicitly represents trade in final goods, primary energy carriers, and, in the case of climate policy, emission allowances. It is formulated such that it yields a distinguished Pareto‐optimal solution which corresponds to the market equilibrium in the absence of non‐internalized externalities. For macro‐economic production, capital, labor and energy are considered as input factors. The macro‐economic output is available for investment into the macro‐economic capital stock, consumption, trade, and costs incurred from the energy system.

The macro‐economic core is hard‐linked to the energy system module. Economic activity results in demand for final energy such as transport energy, electricity, and non‐electric energy for the stationary end‐uses. The demand for final energy is determined via nested constant elasticity of substitution (CES) production function.

The energy system module considers endowments of exhaustible primary energy resources as well as renewable energy potentials. A substantial number (~50) of technologies are available for the conversion of primary energies to secondary energy carriers. Moreover, capacities for transport and distribution of secondary energy carriers for final end use are represented. The costs for the energy system, including investments into capacities, operation and maintenance costs as well as extraction and fuel costs appear in the macroeconomic budget function, thus reducing the amount of economic output available for consumption.

The model system also includes a climate module. In addition to CO2 emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels, other greenhouse gas emissions are determined via marginal abatement costs curves or by assuming exogenous scenarios. A rather simple reduced form climate model is used in the current version of ReMIND‐R. The integration of the more complex climate module ACC2 is under way, but its deployment is subject to computational constraints.

 

Relevant resources (link)

  • Detailed model description (pdf)
  • Technical documentation of equation structure (pdf)
  • Input data files (v1.0, v1.1)

 

Selected Journal Articles

  • Leimbach, M., Bauer, N., Baumstark, L., Edenhofer, O. (2010): Mitigation costs in a globalized world: climate policy analysis with REMIND-R. Environmental Modeling and Assessment 15, 155-173.
  • Bauer, N., Edenhofer, O., Kypreos S. (2008) Linking energy system and macroeconomic growth models. Journal of Computational Management Science (Special Issue), 5, 95 -117.
  • Bauer, N., L. Baumstark, M. Leimbach (2012).The ReMIND-R model: the role of renewables in the low-carbon transformation - first best vs. second-best worlds. Climatic Change, DOI: 10.1007/s10584-011-0129-2.
  • Leimbach, M., Bauer, N., Baumstark, L., Lüken, M, Edenhofer, O. (2010): International trade and technological change – Insights from REMIND. In Special Issue of the Energy Journal, to be published in fall 2009.
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