Modelling Domestic Lighting Energy Consumption in Romania by Integrating Consumers Behavior

Abstract

Sustainable energy consumption is a research area of a large interest in last years. New energy-efficient lighting technologies exist, which can significantly reduce household electricity consumption, but their adoption has been slow. A considerable number of international studies show that sustainable development scenarios will be realistic if they involve the human behavior. The paper provides a solution to integrate consumer behavior with techno-economic energy issues, inside a complex energy model. This approach aims to reduce the error, from the demand side of the energy model. Consumer behavior in energy consumption is described by using specific attributes of energy technologies, namely virtual technologies. The GAMS/TIMES/VEDA energy modelling software tool has been used to integrate the techno-economic energy specific data and consumer behavior, in order to achieve the research purposes. A sociological survey about Romanians’ behavior in energy consumption has been conducted and its results have been integrated in the energy based model, in form of virtual technologies. This approach, known as “Social MARKAL”, allows the analyst to evaluate the possible contribution of information campaigns in changing lighting consumers’ behavior and effect of technology switch. The model is developed for the period 2010-2026, and is implemented by using GAMS/TIMES/VEDA software platform. The results presented this paper focuses on the household lighting technologies

Integrating Methods and Empirical Findings from Social and Behavioural Sciences into Energy System Models—Motivation and Possible Approaches

“…Results from discrete choice models have also been applied to provide insights about the projections of technology adoption through, for example, discrete choice models [57,118]. The WTP in consumers has been addressed through disaggregation by income group to account for differences in consumption and affordability [42,117,119,120]. Efforts have been made to include non-technical influences on investment choices; for example, the true costs of modal shifts in the transport sector, which highlights the hidden costs of mode choice [121].…”

Novel Simulation Approaches for Smart Grids

“…and they do not incorporate the normative beliefs. Other efforts to combine user behavior modeling with energy modeling include for example, the work in [45], where the energy system is modeled using the TIMES (The Integrated MARKAL-EFOM) System which is a successor of MARKAL framework model, developed by the International Energy Agency under the auspices of the Energy Technology Systems Analysis Program (IEA-ETSAP). Virtual technologies have been introduced, in order to model the consumers' investment and the habitual behavior.…”

Adaptation of TIMES Model Structure to Industrial, Commercial and Residential Sectors

“…Although TIMES is a powerful modelling tool, some articles discuss the need to take into account not only technology development but also feedback loops, social behavioral changes and other factors [14]. Some TIMES models have been improved by adding consumer behavior in the optimization model using social surveys [13], [15], [16].…”