Abstract
Bottom-up energy models are considered essential tools to support policy design of electricity end-use efficiency. However, in the literature, no study analyzes their contribution to support policy design of electricity end-use efficiency, the modeling techniques used to build them, and the policy instruments supported by them. This systematic review fills that gap by identifying the current capability of bottom-up energy models to support specific policy instruments. In the research, we review 192 publications from January 2015 to June 2020 to finally select 20 for further examination. The articles are analyzed quantitatively in terms of techniques, model characteristics, and applied policies. The findings of the study reveal that: (1) bottom-up energy models contribute to the support of policy design of electricity end-use efficiency with the application of specific best practices (2) bottom-up energy models do not provide a portfolio of analytical methods which constraint their capability to support policy design (3) bottom-up energy models for residential buildings have limited policy support and (4) bottom-up energy models’ design reveals a lack of inclusion of key energy efficiency metrics to support decision-making. This study’s findings can help researchers and energy modelers address these limitations and create new models following best practices.
Highlights
The 2019 world energy outlook anticipates that the building sector will continue being the main contributor to global electricity demand by 2040 [1]
We identify the following issues in the implemented models (1) the geographical coverage of the models is limited to be local or project (2) bottom-up energy models include a limited set of electricity end-uses, restricting their capability to represent complete energy systems for the residential sector and residential buildings (3) The sector coverage is limited to single-sector models (4) the design of models with hourly/minute, daily, or week resolutions still scarce
We propose a classification of bottom-up energy models to analyze them from different perspectives
Summary
The 2019 world energy outlook anticipates that the building sector (including households and services) will continue being the main contributor to global electricity demand by 2040 [1]. The outlook associates the possible increment in the buildings’ electricity demand by utilizing more air conditioners, household appliances, and electric vehicles. Since the increase in energy use is related to the increment of carbon dioxide (e.g., CO2) emissions, it is advised in the literature to enhance the efficiency of electricity use [2]. It is possible to reduce emissions without compromising the development of electricity services. To this end, governments design policies that promote electricity end-use efficiency [2] with the support of bottom-up energy models [3]
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