See my Conference Paper: “Solar architecture and Zero energy house “ in ResearchGate

my Book: Architectural equivalents of thermal passive solar systems for heating in ResearchGate

Thanks for trying to help, but I fear both proposals are leading into the wrong direction.

Does one 'model' efficiency or is that simply a metric of scenario performance?

Changes in efficiency are the result of choices driven by economic, personal, and other inputs or levers.

Perhaps we need you to further clarify your question.

Are you looking for examples of ‘efficiency’ as a variable in others’ models? Or are you looking for studies that focused on energy efficiency as a primary purpose for the study?

Thanks Jordan, very good points!

Efficiency is not understood as a metric. But energy efficiency may appear as a result due to investments into advanced energy technology leading to lower energy consumption while providing the same energy service.

Improvements of energy efficiency or reductions of energy consumption on the supply and even more important on the demand side are indeed results from choices driven by economic, personal and political levers. These do not just have to be exogenous inputs. For example rising energy prices (economic driver) are variables that are determined endogenously, so that would not be an input. But energy policies could be an exogenous inputs.

I am talking about partial equilibrium models focused on the energy market (ESM) such as NEMS, PRIMES or TIMES. I try to figure out how they considered energy efficiency and investments into it.

And I wonder if there is any literature summerizing this issue.

Hey Jordan, having written this I just found this paper on your profile: End use technology choice in the National Energy Modeling System (NEMS): An analysis of the residential and commercial building sectors 

I will have a look at it hoping that it might help. Maybe you have even more of that? Then I would be highly interested!

Andreas, that NEMS paper is a window into how the U.S. energy economic model defines/describes energy demand in the building sectors and how stiff the model is with respect to consumer preferences. Happy to discuss details offline if you're interested.

The primary issue with efficiency in most models is the exogenous way in which it is defined. Very few models attempt to include Endogenous Technical Learning (ETL), which would allow the efficiency of a given to improve as more federal or corporate investment is spent on R&D (as it would in real life).

Most models, such as most as integrated Assessment Models (IAMs), use an Autonomous Energy Efficiency Improvement (AEEI) parameter. the AEEI, exogenously defines how the rate of the efficiency of an included technology increases. So, as prices in the model get higher and higher, consumers or model agents can only reduce demand or change technologies, no matter how much money is spent on R&D (in the model). So evaluating 'efficiency' of different scenarios is really about evaluating the rate of technology switching or fuel switching. Not a real satisfying result. NEMS, although with more detail, falls into a similar framework.

My colleagues and I have another paper (forthcoming in J. of Energy Policy) comparing three IAMs showing how model parameters and assumptions drive significant differences in model results to a simple carbon tax scenario. I have just posted the abstract and will post a draft version shortly. The paper title is: Comparison of Integrated Assessment Models: Carbon Price Impacts on U.S. Energy

You might also consider looking at all of the summary papers from the many model comparison studies.The following should keep you off the streets for a while...  (references follow)

The Stanford Energy Modeling Forum (EMF) organizes research and diagnostic projects to compare models and improve the community’s understanding of model behavior. Each EMF project addresses specific policy-relevant questions which allow the participating modelers the opportunity to improve their models in that field. Some recent examples: EMF29 assessed the role of border carbon adjustments in unilateral climate policy (Böhringer, Rutherford, Balistreri, & Weyant, 2012); EMF28 compared scenarios for transforming the European energy system (J. Weyant, Knopf, De Cian, Keppo, & van Vuuren, 2013); EMF24 compared climate policy and technology scenarios for the U.S. (A. A. Fawcett, Clarke, Rausch, & Weyant, 2014); and EMF27 evaluated interactions between climate change policy architectures and advanced energy technology availabilities at global scale (J. Weyant & Kriegler, 2014). Each of these studies included more than a dozen models and organizations.

The Assessment of Climate Change Mitigation Pathways and Evaluation of the Robustness of Mitigation Cost Estimates (AMPERE) project included 22 institutions and 17 models (Kriegler et al., 2014). This three-year study assessed the potential costs of delaying climate policy, technology availability and path dependency of energy systems, and the implications of action in a fragmented international policy landscape.

Others have addressed a wide range of timely topics (Clarke, Böhringer, & Rutherford, 2009; e.g., EMF, 2004; A. a. Fawcett, Calvin, de la Chesnaye, Reilly, & Weyant, 2009; J. Weyant et al., 2013; J. P. Weyant, de la Chesnaye, & Blanford, 2006).

Böhringer, C., Rutherford, T. F., Balistreri, E. J., & Weyant, J. (2012). Introduction to the EMF 29 special issue on the role of border carbon adjustment in unilateral climate policy. Energy Economics, 34, S95–S96. doi:10.1016/j.eneco.2012.10.002

Clarke, L., Böhringer, C., & Rutherford, T. F. (2009). International, U.S. and E.U. Climate Change Control Scenarios: Results from EMF 22. Energy Economics, 31(Supplement 2, December), S63–S306.

EMF. (2004). EMF 19: Alternative Technology Strategies for Climate Change Policy. Energy Economics, Special Issue, Special Is(4), 501–755.

Fawcett, A. a., Calvin, K. V., de la Chesnaye, F. C., Reilly, J. M., & Weyant, J. P. (2009). Overview of EMF 22 U.S. transition scenarios. Energy Economics, 31, S198–S211. doi:10.1016/j.eneco.2009.10.015

Fawcett, A. A., Clarke, L. E., Rausch, S., & Weyant, J. P. (2014). Overview of EMF 24 Policy Scenarios. The Energy Journal, 35, 33–60.

Kriegler, E., Riahi, K., Petermann, N., Bosetti, V., Capros, P., Vuuren, D. P. van, … The AMPERE Consortium. (2014). Assessing Pathways toward Ambitious Climate Targets at the Global and European Levels: A synthesis of results from the AMPERE project. Retrieved from http://ampere-project.eu/web/images/Final_Conference/ampere_synthesis_5-2014-compact.pdf

Weyant, J., Knopf, B., De Cian, E., Keppo, I., & van Vuuren, D. P. (2013). Introduction To the Emf28 Study on Scenarios for Transforming the European Energy System. Climate Change Economics, 04(supp01), 1302001. doi:10.1142/S2010007813020016

Weyant, J., & Kriegler, E. (2014). Preface and introduction to EMF 27. Climatic Change, 123(3-4), 345–352. doi:10.1007/s10584-014-1102-7

Weyant, J. P., de la Chesnaye, F. C., & Blanford, G. J. (2006). Overview of EMF-21: Multigas Mitigation and Climate Policy. Energy Journal, 27(Special Issue #3), 1–32.

Hi Andreas,

I'm not aware of any review of the role of energy efficiency in ESMs, but I would be very interested to read one. I suspect that the reason a review is not apparent is that ESMs are not ideal at modelling energy efficiency, generally being cost-optimisation models, which would usually chose energy efficiency improvements where individuals or companies would not chose, because of the "energy efficiency gap" and so forth. Uptake of energy efficiency in these models is often disincentivised by adding hurdle rates.

Curious if you find any good literature. 

Best,

Hannah

(I work with UK TIMES and TIAM-UCL)

Hello Jordan, many thanks for all these hints! They are indeed leading into the right direction! I have to go through all that carefully. It is necessary that I develop more understaning first and then I would like to catch up with you again. But that will take a while.

Very best regards,

Andreas

Hello Hannah,

also many thanks to you! And the same to you, I would like to catch up with you later, when I have developped a better understanding.

Best regards,

Andreas

http://www.eempl.com/air-conditioning.htm

http://www.kendrion.com/industrial/ids/en/products/rectifiers-energy-saving-modules/energy-saving-modules-innovative-cost-saving.html

http://www.ebmpapst.co.uk/media/content/news_media/ebmpapst_news/content_epnews/FirstSpirit_1421932187875Schulung_ESM_E~1.pdf

https://www.acronymfinder.com/Energy-Savings-Measure-(ESM).html