Open Energy Modelling Initiative

Open Energy Modelling Initiative
Abbreviation openmod
Formation 2014 (2014)
Type Internet-based with periodic workshops
Purpose Promote open source energy models and open energy modelling data
Official language
English
Website

The Open Energy Modelling Initiative (openmod) is a grass roots initiative of energy system modellers from various universities and research institutes across Europe and elsewhere. The initiative promotes the use of open source software and open data in energy system modelling for research and policy advice. The Open Energy Modelling Initiative documents a variety of open source energy models and addresses practical and conceptual issues regarding their development and application. The initiative runs a wiki and an emailing list and hosts academic workshops. A statement of aims is available.[1]

Context

Academic literature

An innovative 2012 paper presents the case for using "open, publicly accessible software and data as well as crowdsourcing techniques to develop robust energy analysis tools".[2]:149 The paper claims that these techniques can produce high-quality results and are particularly relevant for developing countries.

There is an increasing call for the energy models and datasets used for energy policy analysis and advice to be made public in the interests of transparency and quality.[3] A 2010 paper concerning energy efficiency modeling argues that "an open peer review process can greatly support model verification and validation, which are essential for model development".[4]:17[5] One 2012 study argues that the source code and datasets used in such models should be placed under publicly accessible version control to enable third-parties to run and check specific models.[6] Another 2014 study argues that the public trust needed to underpin a rapid transition in energy systems can only be built through the use of transparent open source energy models.[7] The UK TIMES project (UKTM) is open source, according to a 2014 presentation, because "energy modelling must be replicable and verifiable to be considered part of the scientific process" and because this fits with the "drive towards clarity and quality assurance in the provision of policy insights".[8]:8 In 2016, the Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project (DDPP) is seeking to improve its modelling methodologies, a key motivation being "the intertwined goals of transparency, communicability and policy credibility."[9]:S27 A 2016 paper argues that model-based energy scenario studies, wishing to influence decision-makers in government and industry, must become more comprehensible and more transparent. To these ends, the paper provides a checklist of transparency criteria that should be completed by modelers. The authors note however that they "consider open source approaches to be an extreme case of transparency that does not automatically facilitate the comprehensibility of studies for policy advice."[10]:4 An editorial from 2016 opines that closed energy models providing public policy support "are inconsistent with the open access movement [and] publically [sic] funded research".[11]:2

Growth in open energy modelling

Just two active open energy modelling projects were cited in a 2012 paper: OSeMOSYS and TEMOA.[lower-alpha 1][2] As of December 2016, the openmod wiki lists 24 such undertakings.[12]

Copyright and open energy data

Issues surrounding copyright remain at the forefront with regard to open energy data. Most energy datasets are collated and published by official or semi-official sources, for example, national statistics offices, transmission system operators, and electricity market operators. The doctrine of open data requires that these datasets be available under free licenses (such as CC BY 4.0). But most published datasets carry proprietary licenses, preventing their reuse in numerical and statistical models, open or otherwise. Measures to enforce market transparency have not helped because the associated information is normally licensed to prevent downstream usage. Recent transparency measures include the 2013 European energy market transparency regulation 543/2013 [13] and a 2016 amendment to the German Energy Industry Act [14] to establish a nation energy information platform, slated to launch on 1 July 2017.

Public policy

In May 2016 the European Union announced that "all scientific articles in Europe must be freely accessible as of 2020".[15] This is a step in the right direction, but the new policy makes no mention of open software and its importance to the scientific process.[16] In August 2016, the United States government announced a new federal source code policy which mandates that at least 20% of custom source code developed by or for any agency of the federal government be released as open-source software (OSS).[17] The US Department of Energy (DOE) is participating in the program. The project is hosted on a dedicated website and subject to a three-year pilot.[17][18] Open source campaigners are using the initiative to advocate that European governments adopt similar practices.[19]

Workshops

The Open Energy Modelling Initiative hosts regular academic workshops.

Workshops
  Date Host City Country
1 18–19 September 2014 DIW Berlin Berlin Germany
2 13–14 April 2015 MCC Berlin[20] Berlin Germany
3 10–11 September 2015 Imperial College London (ICL)[21] London United Kingdom
4 28–29 April 2016 KTH[22] Stockholm Sweden
5 27–28 October 2016 Department of Energy, Politecnico di Milano Milan Italy
6 21–22 April 2017 (forthcoming) Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS)[23] Frankfurt Germany

See also

External links

Related to openmod

Open energy data

Notes

  1. ↑ Other modelling projects were in development at that time but it is unclear whether their code had been made public or not. Balmorel and NEMO were nonetheless both active in 2012.

References

  1. ↑ "openmod — Open Energy Modelling Initiative". Open Energy Modelling Initiative. Retrieved 2016-10-10.
  2. 1 2 Bazilian, Morgan; Rice, Andrew; Rotich, Juliana; Howells, Mark; DeCarolis, Joseph; Macmillan, Stuart; Brooks, Cameron; Bauer, Florian; Liebreich, Michael (2012). "Open source software and crowdsourcing for energy analysis" (PDF). Energy Policy. 49: 149–153. doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2012.06.032. Retrieved 2016-06-17.
  3. ↑ acatech; Lepoldina; Akademienunion, eds. (2016). Consulting with energy scenarios: requirements for scientific policy advice (PDF). Berlin, Germany: acatech — National Academy of Science and Engineering. ISBN 978-3-8047-3550-7. Retrieved 2016-11-09.
  4. ↑ Mundaca, Luis; Neij, Lena; Worrell, Ernst; McNeil, Michael A (1 August 2010). Evaluating energy efficiency policies with energy-economy models — Report number LBNL-3862E (PDF). Berkeley, CA, US: Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. doi:10.1146/annurev-environ-052810-164840. OSTI 1001644. Retrieved 2016-11-15.
  5. ↑ Mundaca, Luis; Neij, Lena; Worrell, Ernst; McNeil, Michael A (22 October 2010). "Evaluating energy efficiency policies with energy-economy models". Annual Review of Environment and Resources. 35 (1): 305–344. doi:10.1146/annurev-environ-052810-164840. ISSN 1543-5938.
  6. ↑ DeCarolis, Joseph F; Hunter, Kevin; Sreepathi, Sarat (2012). "The case for repeatable analysis with energy economy optimization models" (PDF). Energy Economics. 34: 1845–1853. doi:10.1016/j.eneco.2012.07.004. ISSN 0140-9883. Retrieved 2016-07-08.
  7. ↑ Wiese, Frauke; Bökenkamp, Gesine; Wingenbach, Clemens; Hohmeyer, Olav (2014). "An open source energy system simulation model as an instrument for public participation in the development of strategies for a sustainable future". Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Energy and Environment. 3 (5): 490–504. doi:10.1002/wene.109. ISSN 2041-840X.
  8. ↑ Strachan, Neil; Fais, Birgit; Daly, Hannah (18 November 2014). Redefining the energy modelling-policy interface: developing a fully open source UK TIMES model — Presentation (PDF). Energy Technology Systems Analysis Programme (ETSAP) Workshop, Technical University of Denmark (DTU). Copenhagen, Denmark. Retrieved 2016-11-08.
  9. ↑ Pye, Steve; Bataille, Chris (2016). "Improving deep decarbonization modelling capacity for developed and developing country contexts". Climate Policy. 16 (S1): S27–S46. doi:10.1080/14693062.2016.1173004.
  10. ↑ Cao, Karl-Kiên; Cebulla, Felix; Gómez Vilchez, Jonatan J; Mousavi, Babak; Prehofer, Sigrid (28 September 2016). "Raising awareness in model-based energy scenario studies — a transparency checklist". Energy, Sustainability and Society. 6 (1): 28–47. doi:10.1186/s13705-016-0090-z. ISSN 2192-0567. Retrieved 2016-10-04.
  11. ↑ Strachan, Neil; Fais, Birgit; Daly, Hannah (29 February 2016). "Reinventing the energy modelling–policy interface". Nature Energy. 1: 16012. doi:10.1038/nenergy.2016.12. ISSN 2058-7546.
  12. ↑ "Open Models". Open Energy Modelling Initiative. Retrieved 2016-11-03.
  13. ↑ "Commission Regulation (EU) No 543/2013 of 14 June 2013 on submission and publication of data in electricity markets and amending Annex I to Regulation (EC) No 714/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council". Official Journal of the European Union (L 163): 1–12. 15 June 2013. Retrieved 2016-12-01.
  14. ↑ § 111d Energiewirtschaftsgesetz (EnWG) [ Energy Industry Act] of 13 October 2016. p. 115–116. Einrichtung einer nationalen Informationsplattform [Establishment of a national information platform].
  15. ↑ Hendrikx, Michiel (27 May 2016). "All European scientific articles to be freely accessible by 2020" (PDF) (Press release). The Netherlands: Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. Retrieved 2016-08-07.
  16. ↑ Albers, Erik (2 June 2016). "There is no open science without the use of open standards and free software". blog.3rik.cc. Retrieved 2016-08-07.
  17. 1 2 Scott, Tony; Rung, Anne E (8 August 2016). Federal Source Code Policy: Achieving Efficiency, Transparency, and Innovation through Reusable and Open Source Software — Memorandum for the Heads of Departments and Agencies — M-16-21 (PDF). Washington DC, USA: Office of Budget and Management, Executive Office of the President. Retrieved 2016-09-14. Also available as HTML at: sourcecode.cio.gov
  18. ↑ "The People's Code: Unlock the tremendous potential of the Federal Government's software". Code.gov. USA. Retrieved 2016-11-24.
  19. ↑ New, William (22 August 2016). "New US government source code policy could provide model for Europe". Intellectual Property Watch. Geneva, Switzerland. Retrieved 2016-09-14.
  20. ↑ "OSeMOSYS Newsletter". Retrieved 2016-04-25.
  21. ↑ "Open Energy Modelling Workshop". Retrieved 2015-09-25.
  22. ↑ "Open Energy Modelling Workshop — KTH, Stockholm 2016". Retrieved 2016-04-28.
  23. ↑ "Open Energy Modelling Workshop — Frankfurt 2017". Retrieved 2016-12-01.
  24. ↑ "Energiedaten für alle – Projekt "Open Power System Data" an der EUF gestartet" [Energy data for all — project "Open Power System Data" started at the EUF] (in German). Retrieved 2015-09-25.
  25. ↑ "Offene Plattform macht Energiedaten zugänglich" [Open platform makes energy data available] (in German). Retrieved 2015-09-25.
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