Version 1.2.0 (Month X, 2025)

Preview of the upcoming MESSAGEix-Materials release.

This upcoming release of MESSAGEix-Materials introduces significant enhancements to the current model. It features improved calibration and updated parameterization, drawing on the latest statistics and findings from recent literature. Most of these updates reflect developments made during the ScenarioMIP project.

Model changes

Iron & steel sector

Revisions & fixes

• Added missing relation entries for maximum steel recycling rates

• Full calibration of the steel sector for 2020 and 2025, including:

  • Historical production and capacity additions for all major steel production technologies.

  • Historical steel demand.

• Update of techno-economic input data for several technologies to more recent or accurate literature.

• Removed water commodity flows due to incompatibility with new MESSAGEix-GLOBIOM-GAINS model structure.

Extensions

• Explicit representation of India-specific DRI technology using rotary coal kilns.

• gen_cokeoven_co2_cc() function added to generate coke oven CO2 emission factors.

• Added functionality to differentiate steel model parameterization along SSP narratives:

  • get_scrap_prep_cost() function added to generate scrap preparation costs.

  • gen_max_recycling_rel() function added to generate maximum recycling rates.

  • gen_grow_cap_up() function added to generate growth constraints for steel CCS capacity.

  • Use of Investment and fixed costs (tools.costs) for iron/steel production technologies.

• New steel projections derived from relationship of macro-economic investment to per capita steel demand.

• Regionally differentiated scrap availability from steel finishing and manufacturing based on statistics.

Non-metallic minerals sector

• Clinker input for cement production is now differentiated by region based on literature data.

• 2020 and 2025 demand calibrated based on recent statistics, independent of SSP.

• Previous fuel use calibration was updated based on most recent data.

• Growth constraints for clinker CCS capacity are differentiated by SSP.

• The energy requirement for clinker CCS was adjusted based on recent literature.

Non-ferrous metals sector

• Trade representation for alumina has been implemented.

• The aluminum has been fixed in 2025 independent of SSP setting.

• The 2020 aluminum demand was slightly revised in some regions.

• The energy intensity of alumina refining was revised and differentiated by region based on IAI data.

• The fuel use for alumina refining in 2020 was calibrated based on IAI data.

• The energy intensity of aluminum smelting was revised and differentiated by region based on IAI data.

• The historical smelting capacity was calibrated based on an accurate global capacity data set.

• The historical smelting and refining activity in 2020 was calibrated based on BGS statistics.

• The maximum recyclable aluminum scrap ratio is now differentiated by SSP.

• The heat requirement and cost for aluminum scrap preparation is now differentiated by SSP.

Chemicals sector

• Functionality added to differentiate chemicals demands by SSP.

• gen_ccs_bounds() function added to generate CCS bounds for ammonia production in 2020 and 2025.

• gen_meth_fs_downstream() function added to generate new technology for methanol downstream use.

• gen_plastics_emission_factors(), gen_chemicals_co2_ind_factors() and gen_ethanol_to_ethylene_emi_factor() added to generate CO2 emission factors for chemicals.

Power sector

Demand generator

• Added functionality to project material demands based SSP narrative.

• Added quantile regression option for demand projections.

Other

• New residual industry demand model based on historical energy intensity trends.

  • Calibrated to IEA energy balances for 2020.

  • Fixed 2025 technology activity based on 2017-2022 trends.

  • Added SSP specific projections for other industry energy demand.

• Updated share constraint parametrization for low temperature heat technologies.

• Added share constraint for coal use in residual industry based on 2020 IEA energy balances.

• Added non-CO2 emission factors for residual industry technologies based on GAINS data.

• Added furnaces to GAINS driver relation IndThermDemLink.

CLI changes

• The –datafile options has been removed from the material-ix commands, as it is no longer needed.

Deprecations

Model calibration:

Removed:

• .modify_demand_and_hist_activity_debug

• .modify_baseyear_bounds

• .calc_hist_activity

• .add_new_ind_hist_act

• .calc_demand_shares

• .calc_resid_ind_demand

• .modify_industry_demand

• .calc_demand_shares

• .add_elec_lowerbound_2020

• .add_coal_lowerbound_2020

• .add_ccs_technologies renamed to add_cement_ccs_co2_tr_relation().

Reporting:

• Functionalities of model.material.report.reporting replaced by model.material.report.run_reporting. Will be removed completely in the future release.

MACRO calibration:

• .load_GDP_COVID removed.

• .add_macro_COVID renamed to add_macro_materials().

Miscellaneous:

• .combine_df_dictionaries replaced by merge_data().

New features

• The following xlsx files have been replaced by multiple csv files for each sheet to facilitate version control and readability:

  • aluminum_techno_economic.xlsx

  • Global_cement_MESSAGE.xlsx

  • Global_steel_MESSAGE.xlsx

  • fert_techno_economic.xlsx

  • nh3_fertilizer_demand.xlsx

  • cost_conv_nh3.xlsx

  The files are currently still available for reference, but will be removed in a future release. read_sector_data() and read_timeseries() and read_rel() was adjusted to read from csv files.

• New post-processing module for the industry sector in model.material.report.run_reporting providing:

  • More generalized method of post-processing MESSAGEix-Materials results.

  • Configuration handled through model.material.report.config YAML files in material/model/material/reporting/.

  • Higher resolution of post-processed results.

• New module to generate share constraints in model.material.share_constraints.

• Automatized MACRO calibration input data generation with update_macro_calib_file() including data input templates for all SSPs in data/material/macro/.

Note

The MACRO calibration workflow only supports MESSAGEix-GLOBIOM-Materials model with R12 regions. The implementation automates the Excel functions previously used to derive price_ref and cost_ref and is not supposed to be a longterm solution. Ultimately, the message_ix .add_macro functionalities should be used once issue #859 is resolved. See also internal Slack discussion here.

Bug Fixes

Compatibility