On the 10th of September 2020 the WHY project opening session was held. The event gathered many participants from all over Europe, not only the WHY project partners, but also members of other projects on the energy domain (ENERFIRST, sEENergies, EERAdata, NEWTRENDS, MICAT, REFEREE), potential stakeholders of the solution (utilities, ESCOS, technology providers, national agencies, research centers, academia, public authorities) and representatives from the European Commission.
In order to mitigate climate change effects, urgent action is required in all sectors to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Energy System Models are tools that help energy analysts, planners and policy makers to describe energy systems and systematically evaluate the impacts of long-term scenarios. One of the big challenges faced by traditional Energy System Models is that energy demand in the residential sector is influenced by a multitude of factors that cannot easily be accounted for. To overcome this problem, it is necessary to understand how humans take decisions related to energy consumption investments and how their energy related investments are modified due to interventions like policy changes.
The WHY model will allow the assessment of impacts of policies on energy systems as well as policy measures. Moreover, the comprehensive WHY model will be an important step to improve the planning of future energy supply and therefore help to design the energy supply of tomorrow. The models developed in the project will contribute to a holistic understanding of household energy consumption and improved demand modelling.
To achieve the task, the University of Deusto formed a highly multidisciplinary consortium around them in which they will act as the coordinator. This partnership is composed of 4WARD Energy Research GmbH, E3-Modelling AE, the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), GoiEner S.Coop., Renewables Grid Initiative e.V. and Climate Alliance.
The opening session was held at the headquarters of the University of Deusto in Bilbao. During the event, all 7 projects in the call had the chance to introduce the different perspectives they follow to tackle this problem. The event was broadcasted in streaming and is available here: