Agent-based models for residential energy consumption and intervention simulation

The increase in energy consumption in buildings has gained global concern due to its negative implications on the environment. A major part of this increase is attributed to human behavioural energy waste, which has triggered the development of energy simulation models. These models are used to analyse energy consumption in buildings, study the effect of human behaviour and test the effectiveness of energy interventions. However, existing models are limited in simulating realistic and detailed human dynamics, including occupant interaction with appliances, with each other or with energy interventions. This detailed interaction is important when simulating and studying behavioural energy waste. To overcome the limitations of existing models, this thesis proposes a complete layered Agent-Based Model (ABM) composed of three layers / models. The daily behaviour model simulates realistic and detailed behaviour of occupants by integrating a Probabilistic Model (PM) in the ABM. The peer pressure model simulates family-level peer pressure effect on the energy consumption of the house. This model is underpinned using well established human behaviour theories by Leon Festinger – informal social communication theory, social comparison theory and cognitive dissonance theory. The messaging intervention model implements and tests a novel messaging intervention that is proposed in the thesis along with the complete ABM. The intervention is a middle solution between the abstract data presented by existing energy feedback systems and the automated approach followed by existing energy management systems. Therefore, it detects and sends energy waste incidents to occupants who are allowed to take control of their devices. The proposed intervention is tested in the messaging intervention model, which takes advantage of the two other proposed models. The undertaken experiments showed that the model is able to overcome the limitations of exiting models by simulating realistic and detailed human behaviour dynamics. Besides, the experiments showed that the model can be used by policy makers to decide how to target family members to achieve optimal energy saving, thus addressing the world’s concern about increased energy consumption levels

Li-BIM, an agent-based approach to simulate occupant-building interaction from the Building-Information Modelling

International audienceBuilding design involves many challenges and requires to take into account the interaction between the building and the users. Different occupant behaviour models implemented with building simulation tools (thermal, air quality, lighting) have been proposed. Among these, models based on the agent approach seem to be the most promising. However, existing models poorly describe human cognition and the social dimension. Moreover, they are often oriented towards a specific use (thermal simulation, waste management) without being transposable to another field, and they require a significant instantiation effort for each new case, making their use difficult. This article proposes an agent-based model called Li-BIM that simulates the behaviour of the occupants in a building and their indoor comfort. Li-BIM model is structured around the numerical modelling of the building-BIM-(with standard exchange format IFC), a high-resolution cognitive model, and the coupling with various physical models. Li-BIM simulates the reactive, deliberative and social behaviour of occupants in residential dwellings based on the Belief-Desire-Intention architecture. This model, thanks its ease of use and flexibility, is an operational and relevant tool to support building design process with a human-centred approach. An application of the model is presented, focusing on energy consumption and the inhabitants' comfort. In-situ data obtained from the instrumented house that served as case study have been compared with simulation results from Li-BIM and a standard energy simulation software, demonstrating the reliability of the proposed model

The development and application of economic valuation techniques and their use in environmental policy - A survey

This paper is concerned with the issue of how to introduce monetary valuation into public decision-making. This issue is closely related to introducing rational procedures into public decision-making (Pearce, 2001). All public decision-making involves choice. To economists, rational choice means making the 'best' use of available resources, i.e. choose that option that has the lowest opportunity cost or the lowest value to be sacrificed. Costs and benefits of any project should therefore be weighed as well as compared to cost and benefits of alternative projects. This implies that all impacts of these projects need to be expressed in the same unit to make comparison possible. Money seems to be the most obvious numéraire. We discuss some of the most popular economic valuation techniques and their potential role in public decision-making. Due to the high cost and time that is needed to perform original valuation studies and the limited knowledge of decision-makers with these techniques, we recommend that the Flemish Administration primarily invests in performing high-quality transfer studies.Valuation, Cost-benefit Analysis, Travel Cost Method, Contingent Valuation Method

Affordances, constraints and information flows as ‘leverage points’ in design for sustainable behaviour

Copyright @ 2012 Social Science Electronic PublishingTwo of Donella Meadows' 'leverage points' for intervening in systems (1999) seem particularly pertinent to design for sustainable behaviour, in the sense that designers may have the scope to implement them in (re-)designing everyday products and services. The 'rules of the system' -- interpreted here to refer to affordances and constraints -- and the structure of information flows both offer a range of opportunities for design interventions to in fluence behaviour change, and in this paper, some of the implications and possibilities are discussed with reference to parallel concepts from within design, HCI and relevant areas of psychology

Can Climate Change Mitigation Policy Benefit the Israeli Economy? A Computable General Equilibrium Analysis

The growing attention to global warming due to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the process of fossil fuel--based energy production is expressed in the Kyoto Protocol, which prescribes, on average, a 7 percent reduction in GHG emissions for developed countries. Although Israel was not included in the list of the obligated countries ("Annex A"), it should consider the economic implications of participating in the emission reduction effort, as such a commitment becomes highly feasible following the Bali roadmap which oblige a successor to the Kyoto Protocol to launch negotiations including all parties to the UNFCCC on a future framework, stressing the role of cooperative action and of common though differentiated responsibility. This study aimed to quantify the economy-wide consequences for Israel of meeting the targets of the Kyoto Protocol, employing a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model of the Israeli economy. Initially, to this end, we constructed a social accounting matrix (SAM) to serve as a benchmark by combining physical energy and emission data and economic data from various sources. The efficacy of decentralized economic incentives for CO2 emission reduction, such as carbon taxes on emissions and auctioned emission permits, was assessed in terms of their impact on economic welfare. In addition, we tested for the ensuing so-called double dividend. Two distinct cases were analyzed. In the first one, we tested a revenue-neutral environmental policy which proportionally cut pre-existing taxes. Labour supply was assumed to be exogenously fixed. The results showed that, although significant CO2 emission reduction can be achieved, followed by modest economic cost, no double dividend could be discerned. Next, in order to check for the employment double dividend (lower CO2 emissions and lower unemployment), we introduced labor market imperfections, with the aim of cutting income tax. The results of this case indicate that an employment double dividend is possible under a rather standard set of assumptions. Moreover, for higher substitutability between the energy composite input and the labor-capital one, an even “strong” form of double dividend can be obtained. We performed several sensitivity analyses with respect to the modeled production function, which re-confirmed the finding that higher substitution possibilities lead to lower welfare costs 3 associated with a given emission reduction target. We qualify this general result by also showing that the opposite holds when the emission tax rate is held constant, rather than reduced. It may be concluded on the basis of this analysis that a double dividend may be an achievable goal under a GHG emission reduction policy in the case of economies such as Israel. The CGE approach applied in this research is adopted for the first time to the Israeli economy and should contribute to better informed debate on environmental policy in Israel.Computable General Equilibrium, Climate Change, Environmental Policy, Double Dividend, Israel

Modelling the diffusion and operation of anaerobic digestions in Great Britain under future scenarios within the scope of water-energy-food nexus

The paper aims to understand the impacts of the spatial and temporal diffusion of Anaerobic Digestion (AD) on the Water Energy Food (WEF) nexus and to quantify the associated environmental, social and economic benefits. Contemporary tight carbon reduction targets urge the need to deploy renewable energy technologies however due to interdependencies across the WEF nexus, various technologies are beneficial for some but not all sectors. This paper quantifies the impacts of future possible AD technology diffusion choices on the environment, society and economy. This can aid decision makers to identify the potential consequences of various AD alternatives within the next three decades. The study considers an integrated WEF nexus approach and accounts for the interdependencies within the nexus. This was done by developing an Agent-Based Model (ABM) and simulating the relations between the main players within the nexus, thus examining the upscaling of AD diffusion and its consequences for water consumption, energy production, transportation, landfill use, food waste processing and digestate generation. Three future WEF nexus scenarios, that reflect potential alternatives of society and technology in Great Britain up to 2050, were utilised by the ABM implementation to test the sensitivity of AD diffusion choices. These scenarios describe possible changes to lifestyle, governance, technologies, climate, and social structures. Accounting for the uncertainty associated with such future simulations, the Monte Carlo method was employed to estimate the potential variations in scenario outputs. Results suggest that decentralisation results in the largest carbon reduction, but can incur more costs. Centralisation consumes 35% more water but produces 37% more energy (biogas). The paper has visualised the scenario outputs graphically to highlight the consequences of neglecting the inter-relationships between environmental, social and economic aspects of AD

A Non-intrusive Heuristic for Energy Messaging Intervention Modelled using a Novel Agent-based Approach

In response to the increased energy consumption in residential buildings, various efforts have been devoted to increase occupant awareness using energy feedback systems. However, it was shown that feedback provided by these systems is not enough to inform occupant actions to reduce energy consumption. Another approach is to control energy consumption using automated energy management systems. The automatic control of appliances takes-out the occupant sense of control, which is proved to be uncomfortable in many cases. This paper proposes an energy messaging intervention that keeps the control for occupants whilst supporting them with actionable messages. The messages inform occupants about energy waste incidents happening in their house in real-time, which enables occupants to take actions to reduce their consumption. Besides, a heuristic is defined to make the intervention non-intrusive by controlling the rate and time of the messages sent to occupants. The proposed intervention is evaluated in a novel layered agentbased model. The first layer of the model generates detailed energy consumption and realistic occupant activities. The second layer is designed to simulate the peer pressure effect on the energy consumption behaviour of the individuals. The third layer is a customisable layer that simulates energy interventions. The implemented intervention in this paper is the proposed non-intrusive messaging intervention. A number of scenarios are presented in the experiments to show how the model can be used to evaluate the proposed intervention and achieve energy efficiency targets