Sectors

GAINS covers all sectors of the economy, including Power Plants, Industry, Household, Waste, Transport, and Agriculture, encompassing 364 sectors/subsectors. For a complete list of the sectors, refer to the sector glossary page.

Each sector may be associated with a number of activities, and some activities can be attributed to multiple sectors, forming a total of 842 legitimate sector-activity combinations in the model. The structure of the sectors in GAINS follows the SNAP (Standard Nomenclature for Air Pollution) classification system. That structure is detailed below for some of the most important sectors, along with the abbreviations used in the model.

Power Plants

GAINS differentiates between existing and new power plants. Existing plants PP_EX are defined as all capacities put into operation on or before December 31, 1995. They include small and large coal-fired (PP_EX_S and PP_EX_L, respectively) and other non-coal-fired existing power plants PP_EX_OTH, such as industrial power plants, Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plants, and public district heating plants. Similarly, new plants include small and large coal-fired (PP_NEW_S and PP_NEW_L, respectively) and other non-coal-fired new power plants PP_NEW. Furthermore, GAINS covers (i) Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) power plants with and without carbon capture technology (PP_IGCC and PP_IGCC_CCS), and (ii) modern power plants, which are ultra and supercritical coal power plants or combined cycle gas turbines CCGT gas plants, with and without carbon capture technology (PP_MOD and PP_MOD_CCS). Diesel generator sets are denoted as PP_ENG. The total inputs into power plants, including electricity generation, are represented by PP_TOTAL, which may result in negative values.

Conversion Sector CON

The conversion sector includes on-site consumption of fuel and energy in coal mines, refineries, coke and briquette plants, gasification plants, etc. It also includes own use of electricity and heat in the power and district heating sector, as well as transmission and distribution losses for electricity, heat, and gas. The sector CON is further divided into fuel used in combustion processes (CON_COMB) and own use and losses that occur without combustion (CON_LOSS). This distinction is necessary to account for different emission factors in combustion and non-combustion processes.

GAINS treats fuel combustion in boilers and furnaces separately due to differences in operating conditions, emission factors, and emission control technologies for these two types of combustors. The sector CON_COMB covers fuel combustion in furnaces used in the energy sector. Examples include combustion in crude oil distillation furnaces and catalytic cracking installations in oil refineries, or coking gas use for heating coke batteries in coke plants. Fuel combusted in heat only boilers (in oil refineries, coke plants, coalmines, coal gasification plants etc.) should be reported in the sector called Combustion in industrial boilers (IN_BO). Should it not be possible to distinguish between combustion in boilers and combustion in furnaces, it is recommended to report all fuel combustion in energy industries belonging to the CON sector under CON_COMB.

The sector CON_LOSS includes the following items:

  • Losses of fuels, electricity and district heat in transmission and distribution to final consumer

  • Own use of electricity and heat in the power sector, representing the difference between gross electricity/heat output and the energy supplied to the grid. It also includes electricity use in pumped storage hydro plants.

  • Use of electricity, heat and fuels in other plants belonging to the energy sector (coalmines, oil refineries, coke plants, gasification and liquefaction plants etc.)

  • Difference between total fuel inputs and outputs from the conversion processes.

The latter bullet includes:

  • For coke plants a difference between input of coal and gross output of coke and coke oven gas. The fuel lost is coal (HC).

  • For oil refineries, it accounts for the difference between crude oil and other feedstocks input and gross output of petroleum products (residual oil, gasoline, medium distillates, refinery gas, other). Since GAINS does not include crude oil in the energy balance, it assumes that the fuel lost is heavy fuel oil (HF).

  • For biomass liquefaction and gasification plants, it accounts for the difference between biomass input and gross output of products (liquid fuels, biogas). The fuel lost is biomass.

IN_BO_CON covers fuel combustion in industrial boilers, while CON_COMB covers fuel combustion in furnaces.

Industry (IN)

Energy consumption in the Industry sector is divided into combustion in (heat only) boilers (IN_BO) and other industrial combustion (IN_OC_TOT). Boiler fuel consumption is further divided into consumption in the conversion sector (IN_BO_CON), chemical industry (IN_BO_CHEM), pulp and paper industry (IN_BO_PAP), small coal boilers (<50 MWth) in other industries (IN_BO_OTH_S), large coal boilers (>50 MWth) in other industry (IN_BO_OTH_L), and non-coal boilers in other industry (IN_BO_OTH). Should the detailed split by sub-sectors not be known for a given energy pathway, it is recommended to report the total boiler fuel consumption under IN_BO_OTH. Other industrial combustion (IN_OC_TOT) is divided into iron and steel (IN_OC_ISTE), chemical (IN_OC_CHEM), non`-ferrous metals (IN_OC_NFME), non-metallic minerals (IN_OC_NMMI), paper, pulp, and printing (IN_OC_PAP), and other manufacturing industries (IN_OC_OTH). Should the detailed split by sub-sectors not be known for a given energy pathway, it is recommended to report the total fuel consumption under other industrial combustion (IN_OC_TOT). Should the detailed split of fuel consumption between boilers and other combustion not be known, it is recommended to report the total fuel consumption under other industrial combustion (IN_OC_TOT).

For the other industrial combustion (IN_OC_TOT) sector, GAINS calculates emissions based on activity data reported under IN_OC. This column is internally calculated by the GAINS model during data initialization by subtracting energy use reported for cement and lime production from the total energy use in industry (IN_OC_TOT). Thereby, the model takes into account the high retention of the sulfur during cement and lime production and calculates emissions from these activities under industrial process emissions. These measures are taken to avoid double counting of emissions.

Domestic Sector (DOM)

The Domestic sector includes the subsectors urban residential (DOM_URB) and rural residential (DOM_RUR), residential kerosene lamps (DOM_LIGHT), commercial and public services (DOM_COM), and other services, agriculture, forestry, fishing, and non-specific sub-sectors (DOM_OTH).

Transport Sector (TRA)

In the Transport sector, we distinguish between road and rail transport. The road transport is further divided into motorcycles, mopeds and cars with 2-stroke engines (TRA_RD_LD2), motorcycles and mopeds with 4-stroke engines (TRA_RD_M4), cars and small buses with 4-stroke engines (TRA_RD_LD4C), light commercial trucks with 4-stroke engines (TRA_RD_LD4T), heavy duty buses (TRA_RD_HDB), and heavy duty trucks (TRA_RD_HDT). For each vehicle type GAINS requires information on total annual fuel consumption by fuel type (in PJ), total annual vehicle-kilometers driven (Gveh-km), and vehicle numbers (1000 vehicles).

The following tree presents the structure of the transport sectors to visualize the how main sectors and subsectors are generally linked in GAINS:

Transport Sector

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Fig. 2 Structure of the transport sector in GAINS.