WHY is the next step in improving energy demand modelling to forecast the domestic sector’s energy consumption.
Energy is consumed at household level to use appliances/machines that provide a service to the household members (i.e. heating, lightning, cooling, etc.). In many cases, this is a conscious and voluntary action but in some cases, the service automatically consumes energy to sustain its operation (like the refrigerator). The main objective of the WHY project is to understand what, when, how much and why energy is consumed at households.
The WHY project develops innovative methodologies and a toolkit for short- and long-term household energy consumption modelling. Use cases benchmark these models ranging from local to European-wide energy grids.
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Our results aim at
Policymakers
The WHY Causal Model contributes to improve the understanding of the human decision factors leading to energy demand patterns in the residential sector.
These models will be used to create a set of computer programs that form the WHY Toolkit. The Toolkit will be integrated with leading Energy System Models (ESMs) to develop five use cases that assess different policy scenarios.
Scientific Community
The WHY Causal Model will allow to improve the understanding of the human decision factors leading to energy demand patterns in the residential sector.
The Model will improve the forecasting accuracy of policy intervention impacts. Given the long-term projections needed to assess the emission targets set by the different policies, the Causal Model will allow for long-term evolution of various scenarios.
Energy experts
Traditional energy models are not able to correctly assess the impact that a certain policy might have on the energy demand at residential level.
WHY builds a Causal Model to improve the understanding of human decision processes behind these demand patterns, enabling to accurately forecast how different policies impact the household energy consumption. Five use cases will be used to assess different policy scenarios with special focus on the EU Green Deal and the Renovation Wave policies.