Soft-Linking Exercises Between TIMES, Power System Models and Housing Stock Models

Soft-linking TIMES models with carefully selected complementary models can provide useful additional insights into the results from the TIMES model and can usefully scrutinize specific TIMES results in greater detail with another model. This multi-model approach can take advantage of the individual strengths of different modelling approaches. This chapter collates methodologies and results from a number of soft-linking exercises with TIMES. Two specific examples are given; firstly the soft-linking of TIMES to a power system model to investigate the TIMES results and provide additional insights into power system flexibility, reliability and market issues. The second example comprises the soft-linking of a TIMES model to a power system and a housing stock model to explore the impacts of increased electrification of residential heating on the power system and associated emissions from the residential sector. These examples show how a multi-model approach and soft-linking can provide a strong complementary analysis to TIMES modelling exercises and generate insights into results that otherwise would be difficult to achieve with a single model approach.