Assessment of technologies in a global energy system

Abstract

A limited research and development budget usually implies that decisions must be made regarding the distribution of the available funds among the most promising R & D projects. The MARKAL model is used to describe a national energy system where existing and new energy conversion and process technologies compete for a market share in satisfying exogenously specified demand patterns. A measure is introduced which may be used to rank the relative importance of a technology in the energy system. Several scenarios depicting different restrictions on the energy system are used in the analysis.