Overview¶
In this section demod is presented, showing main functionalities and available modules. By reading this section you should have a general understanding of what demod can do, what are the theoretical and empirical foundations of the different modules and how to proceed with the design of a domestic energy demand model that meets your needs.
What’s demod supposed to do?¶
Demod has been developed with the overarching aim of providing a flexible and easily customizable tool for simulating domestic energy demand (e.g., electrical and thermal).
Indeed, you can select numerous household characteristics (e.g., appliances, heating system, socio-demographic characteristics) or replace entire simulation modules to generate suitable energy demand profiles for your research interests.
Currently, demod’s modules are parametrized by default using data for Germany. It is also possible to select a UK version, which makes use of data from the CREST model. You can also add a dataset from another country by creating a custom dataset module to parametrize demod’s simulation modules.
The data employed are usually made available for other European and non-European countries. This together with the complete documentation of all the modules and the data processing methods allows the application of demod to contexts other than Germany.
Socio-technical modeling¶
As discussed in several studies, domestic energy demand is the outcome of diverse individual and shared practices in diverse situations. Therefore, investigating how consumers access energy services and undertaken daily activities is key for improving domestic energy demand models.
In this regard, demod’s modules are based on microsimulation of human behavior. In other words, they explicitly take into account household occupancy and activity behavior to reconstruct their thermal and electrical demand profiles. This allows to simulate thermal and electrical demand in an integrated and consistent manner, including dependencies between individual loads and obtaining adequate time diversification.
However, this approach requires certain assumptions and simplifications to be made, e.g. regarding the association between human behaviour and appliance use, behavioural heterogeneity or variable energy service expectation. These assumptions should be considered to make informed choice about the most suitable modules according to the specific application, but also encourage the improvement of those currently available.
For further details, you may be interested in the following readings: [McKenna2017]
Examples of application¶
Thanks to its properties of modularity, scalability and complete transparency, demod can be used in various applications:
Direct use for generating occupancy, activity, thermal and electrical demand profiles with high temporal resolution (see Quickstart Examples).
Integration of demod-based domestic energy demand model within co-simulation ecosystems for the study of larger scale scenarios at district, urban and national level (see Integration with Co-simulation Frameworks).
Improve, change modules or extend demod’s modules to perform cross-analysis and validation of entire models or individual components (see Creating your first simulator)
demod’s main components¶
This section presents the modules available in demod, their operation, their input and output data, compatibility with other demod modules, the current available parameterisations and the data required to parameterise them in case they are to be used for a specific case study other than those available. For more details on their implementation, you will also find the link of the dedicated API section.
In Fig. 1, a possible demod-based domestic energy demand model framework is reported.
Fig. 1 Domestic energy demand model framework using demod: a possible configuration¶