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Sector coupling

Sector coupling is represented using a simplified structure of buses, links, and loads — all loads are in electricity, with no other energy carriers involved. See the REMIND-PyPSA-Eur paper (linked on the home page) for the methodology behind this choice.

Under development

This representation of sector coupling is still under development — for example, PyPSA-China handles heat differently.

REMIND currently provides sectoral electricity demand for the following sectors (see remind_symbols_gdx.yaml / remind_symbols_mif.yaml):

  • Hydrogen electrolysis (electrolysis)
  • EV passenger (EV_pass)
  • EV freight (EV_freight)
  • Heat pumps (heatpump)
  • Resistive heating (resistive)
  • Space cooling (space_cooling, currently only in .mif)
  • Residual demand (AC)

For each of these sectors, a load time series needs to be added to the PyPSA network — otherwise the demand should be folded into the residual demand instead. Attaching the Load to its own Bus also enables demand-side management, if an additional Store is added alongside it.

This simplified structure means PyPSA doesn't decide, for example, how many heat pumps or resistive heaters to install — that investment decision stays with the IAM.

Example in PyPSA-Eur

PyPSA-Eur is the current reference implementation: pypsa-eur-iam/scripts/remind/add_electricity_sector_REMIND.py attaches one Bus/Link/Load (and, where enabled, a Store) per sector. See pypsa-eur-iam/README.md's "What's different from upstream PyPSA-Eur" section for the full rundown.