MARKAL

(Energy Planning and Management)

Rabin Shrestha
Visiting Faculty
Pulchowk Campus, 2009
 MARKAL
• MARKAL stands for Market Allocation
• Markal is a “bottom-up” energy-technology-
environmental systems model
• Finds a least cost set of technologies to
satisfy end-use energy service demands and
user-specified constraints
• Calculates resulting environmental emissions

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 Key MARKAL Features
• Provides a coherent and transparent
framework
– Data assumptions are open and each result may
be traced to its technological roots
• Is flexible (facilitates “What-If?” questions)
• Has a Long history (> 20 years) of widespread
use (> 50 countries)

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 MARKAL Objective
• Identifies the least-cost pattern of resource use
and technology deployment over time
• Quantifies the sources of emissions from the
associated energy system
• Quantifies the system-wide effects of changes in
resource supply, technology availability, and
energy and environmental policies
• Provides a framework for exploring and evaluating
alternative futures, and the role of various
technology and policy options
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 MARKAL Application
• What happens if a new technology becomes
available, or if an old one becomes cheaper or
more efficient?
• What are the implications of a technology forcing
policy (e.g., a renewable portfolio standard)?
• How do changes in technology, environmental
policy, and resource availability/costs interact?
• How to identify cost-effective responses to
restrictions on emissions

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 MARKAL Applications
• How to perform prospective analysis of long-term
energy balances under different scenarios
• What is the effects of regulations, taxes, and
subsidies on energy consumption and production,
fuel switching
• How to project inventories of greenhouse gas
emissions
• How to estimate the value of regional cooperation
and energy trade between countries

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 How MARKAL Works
• Objective: Minimize aggregate system costs (
= capital + operating + fuel + those
associated with environmental emissions)
• Subject to various constraints:
– System: energy balance, demands, electrical
system operation
– User-imposed: emissions caps, technology
portfolio standards, taxes, and subsidies

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 How MARKAL Works…
• Represents all energy producing,
transforming, and consuming processes as
an interconnected network (Reference
Energy System)
• Selects technologies to meet end-use
service demands based on life-cycle costs
of competing alternatives
• Enforces a systems perspective

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 MARKAL's Four Stage Representation
of an Energy System
Primary Energy Process End-Use Demand for
Supply Technologies Technologies Energy Service
(Final Energy) (Useful Energy)
Renewables e.g. Fuel processing Industry, e.g.
-Biomass Industry, e.g.
Plants e.g. -Steam boilers
-Hydro -Process steam
-Oil refineries -Machinery
-Motive power
-Hydrogen prod.
Mining e.g. -Ethanol prod. Services, e.g.
Services, e.g.
-Crude oil -Air conditioners
-Cooling
-Natural gas Power plants e.g. -Light bulbs
-Lighting
-Coal -Conventional
Fossil Fueled Households, e.g.
Households, e.g.
Imports e.g. -Solar -Space heaters
-Space heat
-crude oil -Wind -Refrigerators
-Refrigeration
-oil products -Nuclear
-CCGT Agriculture, e.g.
Agriculture, e.g.
-Fuel Cells -Irrigation pumps
Exports e.g. -Water supply
-Combined Heat
-oil products
and Power Transport, e.g.
-coal Transport, e.g.
-Gasoline Car
-Person-km
Stock changes -Fuel Cell Bus

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 Example MARKAL Reference Energy
System with One End-Use Demand
Resource Process Conversion Demand End-use
technologies technologies technologies technologies demand

Oil Oil Oil 1 Oil 2 Power

Pipeline Refinery Energy
Well Plant
Conservation Residential

Electric
Space
Cooling
Coal Coal Coal 1 Power Residential
Transport
Mine Plant Air
Conditioner

Electric
Syn-Gas
Coal

from Coal
Gas Power
Plant
Gas Well Pipeline

Each box is a MARKAL technology

Each arrow is a MARKAL energy carrier

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 Data Requirements
• Useful energy end-use service demands
• Available resource supplies and costs
• Technology characteristics
– Existing capacity
– Costs: investment, fixed, variable, fuel
– Performance: fuels in/out, efficiency, emission
rates, availability, lifetime
• Emissions constraints, taxes

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 EPA National MARKAL database
Sector Sources Technologies
Transportation DOE OTT 15 personal vehicle technologies in 5 size classes; 40 other
passenger and freight technologies
Electricity NEMS, IPM 45 technologies
Commercial NEMS 300 heating, cooling, ventilation, lighting, and refrigeration
technologies
Residential NEMS 135 heating, cooling, lighting, and refrigeration technologies

Industrial SAGE Framework covering 6 industries, 6 energy services

Coal supply NEMS 25 types by region, sulfur content, and mine type; 8-step supply
curves
Oil/gas supply NEMS, USGS 5 grades imported oil; 9 imported refined products plus natural gas;
3-step supply curves.
Domestic oil and gas production under development
Emissions EPA, GREET CO2, CH4, N20; criteria pollutants
Vehicle-specific emissions for transport
Control technology options for electricity
Sector fuel averages for RCI
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 Current Technology Focus in USA
• Electricity generation:
– Advanced coal and natural gas plants
– Renewables
– Advanced nuclear plants
– Carbon capture and sequestration
• Transportation:
– Conventional and advanced gasoline and diesel ICEs
– Gasoline and diesel hybrids
– Hydrogen (and other) fuel cells
• Hydrogen
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 Electric Sector Technology
Assessment – Scenario Strategy
• “Forward” – Given expected technology
cost/performance specifications, fuel price trajectories,
etc., how are particular generation technologies
employed to meet electricity demand? How does this
profile affect emissions?
• “Backward” – Given a fixed market penetration (e.g.,
for renewable generation by 2030), what routes get us
there (e.g., high gas prices, specific technology
assumptions for wind turbines)?

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 Electric Sector Technology
Assessment – Internal Focus
• Advanced technologies to examine include:
– Carbon capture (pre- and post-combustion)
– H2 fuel cells
– Distributed generation (microturbines)
– Advanced renewables (wind and solar)
– Biomass
– Advanced nuclear
• Technology-based issues:
– Nuclear – What might drive an expanded role? Compatibility with an H 2
economy?
– Renewables – How much capacity is feasible?
– Coal – What conditions favor an increase in use (e.g., adoption of carbon capture,
gas prices)?
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 Electric Sector Technology Assessment
– Looking Across Sectors
• Natural gas – What are the impacts of a sustained
increase in gas prices (due to demand change and/or
resource depletion)?
• Demand increase – What happens to the generation and
emissions profiles if electricity consumption greatly
exceeds projections?
• Demand decrease – What demand-side efficiency
measures have a significant impact?
• H2 Economy – How would the electricity sector
contribute to and be affected by such a transition?

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 Transportation Scenario Focus
• Impact and potential of biofuels
• System-wide environmental trade-offs between
gasoline-hybrid and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles
• Potential of fleet mandates
• Environmental and economic trade-offs
between steam methane reforming,
electrolysis, and coal gasification for hydrogen
production

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 References
IAEA, Energy and Nuclear Power Planning in Developing
Countries, Technical Report Series No. 245, International
Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, 1985
International Resources Group, Energy Planning and the
Development of Carbon Mitigation Strategies: Using the
MARKAL Family of Models
Richard Loulou, Gary Goldstein, Ken Noble, Documentation for
the MARKAL Family of Models, Energy Technology Systems
Analysis Programme October, 2004

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