Modelling UK domestic energy and carbon emissions: an agent-based approach

As the debate on policy responses to climate change gathers pace, there has been an increasing focus on tools to model national scale energy use and emission characteristics of UK dwellings. This paper reviews some existing models and highlights limitations of their common underlying methodologies. We argue that a radically different, integrated, approach is required to tackle these challenges and ensure that the modelling remain robust and able to meet future demands. We suggest that Agent Based Modelling (ABM) is a suitable candidate modelling paradigm to achieve an integrated modelling framework. We also present DECarb-ABM (an ABM based implementation of an existing model, DECarb) with many of the desired properties of such an integrated framework. The new model is validated against both the existing model and historical data.

[1]  Ian Richardson,et al.  A high-resolution domestic building occupancy model for energy demand simulations , 2008 .

[2]  G. Madey,et al.  VERIFICATION AND VALIDATION OF SCIENTIFIC AND ECONOMIC MODELS , 2005 .

[3]  Eberhard Jochem,et al.  Society, behaviour, and climate change mitigation , 2000 .

[4]  Geoff Green,et al.  Living in cold homes after heating improvements: Evidence from Warm-Front, England’s Home Energy Efficiency Scheme , 2007 .

[5]  G. Nigel Gilbert,et al.  Simulation for the social scientist , 1999 .

[6]  Pushpam Kumar.  Agriculture (Chapter8) in IPCC, 2007: Climate change 2007: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fourth assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , 2007 .

[7]  Lynn Langmeyer.  A social psychological perspective on energy conservation in residential buildings. , 1984 .

[8]  Robert Lowe,et al.  An exploration of the technical feasibility of achieving CO2 emission reductions in excess of 60% within the UK housing stock by the year 2050 , 2005 .

[9]  Jan Gilbertson,et al.  Home is where the hearth is: grant recipients' views of England's home energy efficiency scheme (Warm Front). , 2006, Social science & medicine.

[10]  Eric Paulos,et al.  Home, habits, and energy: examining domestic interactions and energy consumption , 2010, CHI.

[11]  James Keirstead,et al.  Evaluating the applicability of integrated domestic energy consumption frameworks in the UK , 2006 .

[12]  Kirsten Gram-Hanssen,et al.  Residential heat comfort practices: understanding users , 2010 .

[13]  C. Midden,et al.  Communication Network Influences on Information Diffusion and Persuasion , 1991 .

[14]  Nick Collier,et al.  Repast: An extensible framework for agent simulation , 2001 .

[15]  Dirk Helbing,et al.  Agent-Based Modeling , 2012 .

[16]  T. Crosbie,et al.  Energy-efficiency interventions in housing: learning from the inhabitants , 2010 .

[17]  Frede Blaabjerg,et al.  Overview of Control and Grid Synchronization for Distributed Power Generation Systems , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics.

[18]  Sukumar Natarajan,et al.  Predicting future UK housing stock and carbon emissions , 2007 .

[20]  Michael I. Gentry,et al.  Central heating thermostat settings and timing: building demographics , 2010 .

[21]  H. Van Dyke Parunak,et al.  Agent-Based Modeling vs. Equation-Based Modeling: A Case Study and Users' Guide , 1998, MABS.

[22]  Loren Lutzenhiser,et al.  A cultural model of household energy consumption , 1992 .

[23]  Gregory R. Madey,et al.  Verification and Validation of Agent-based Scientific Simulation Models , 2005 .

[24]  L. Shorrock,et al.  Domestic energy fact file 2003 , 2003 .

[25]  NICHOLAS R. JENNINGS,et al.  An agent-based approach for building complex software systems , 2001, CACM.

[26]  Tadj Oreszczyn,et al.  Challenges for energy and buildings research: objectives, methods and funding mechanisms , 2010 .

[27]  W. F. V. Raaij,et al.  A behavioral model of residential energy use , 1983 .

[28]  Ralph Johnson,et al.  design patterns elements of reusable object oriented software , 2019 .

[29]  Kevin J. Lomas,et al.  Identifying trends in the use of domestic appliances from household electricity consumption measurements , 2008 .

[30]  Sukumar Natarajan,et al.  Domestic futures--Which way to a low-carbon housing stock? , 2007 .

[31]  A. Wright,et al.  Targeting household energy-efficiency measures using sensitivity analysis , 2010 .

[32]  Brian Norton,et al.  Real-life energy use in the UK: How occupancy and dwelling characteristics affect domestic electricity use , 2008 .

[33]  L. D. Shorrock,et al.  The physically-based model BREHOMES and its use in deriving scenarios for the energy use and carbon dioxide emissions of the UK housing stock , 1997 .

[34]  Theo M.M. Verhallen,et al.  PATTERNS OF RESIDENTIAL ENERGY BEHAVIOR , 1983 .

[35]  Nicholas Jenkins,et al.  Energy: the changing climate , 2001 .

[36]  Dejan Mumovic,et al.  A review of bottom-up building stock models for energy consumption in the residential sector , 2010 .

[37]  Christoph Haederli,et al.  Network integration of distributed power generation , 2002 .

[38]  Tadj Oreszczyn,et al.  Changes in energy demand from low-energy homes , 2010 .

[39]  Nick Baker,et al.  Energy and Environment in Architecture: A Technical Design Guide , 2000 .