The Open Energy Modelling Initiative (openmod) is a

grassroots A grassroots movement is one that uses the people in a given district, region or community as the basis for a political or continent movement. Grassroots movements and organizations use collective action from volunteers at the local level to imp ...

community of

energy system An energy system is a system primarily designed to supply #Energy-services, energy-services to end user, end-users. The intent behind energy systems is to minimise energy losses to a negligible level, as well as to ensure the efficient use of ...

modellers from universities and research institutes across Europe and elsewhere. The initiative promotes the use of

open-source software Open-source software (OSS) is Software, computer software that is released under a Open-source license, license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and Software distribution, distribute the software an ...

and

open data Open data are data that are openly accessible, exploitable, editable and shareable by anyone for any purpose. Open data are generally licensed under an open license. The goals of the open data movement are similar to those of other "open(-so ...

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 an

email list A mailing list is a collection of names and addresses used by an individual or an organization to send material to multiple recipients. Mailing lists are often rented or sold. If rented, the renter agrees to use the mailing list only at contra ...

, an internet forum, and a

wiki A wiki ( ) is a form of hypertext publication on the internet which is collaboratively edited and managed by its audience directly through a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages that can either be edited by the public or l ...

and hosts occasional academic workshops. A statement of aims is available.

Context

The application of open-source development to energy modelling dates back to around 2003. This section provides some background for the growing interest in open methods.

Growth in open energy modelling

Just two active open energy modelling projects were cited in a 2011 paper: OSeMOSYS and TEMOA. Balmorel was also public at that time, having been made available on a website in 2001. the openmod wiki lists 24 such undertakings. the Open Energy Platform lists 17open energy frameworks and about 50open energy models.

Academic literature

This 2012 paper presents the case for using "open, publicly accessible software and data as well as

crowdsourcing Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digit ...

techniques to develop robust energy analysis tools". 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

dataset A data set (or dataset) is a collection of data. In the case of tabular data, a data set corresponds to one or more database tables, where every column of a table represents a particular variable, and each row corresponds to a given record o ...

s used for

energy policy Energy policies are the government's strategies and decisions regarding the Energy production, production, Energy distribution, distribution, and World energy supply and consumption, consumption of energy within a specific jurisdiction. Energy ...

analysis and advice to be made public in the interests of transparency and quality. 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". One 2012 study argues that the

source code In computing, source code, or simply code or source, is a plain text computer program written in a programming language. A programmer writes the human readable source code to control the behavior of a computer. Since a computer, at base, only ...

and datasets used in such models should be placed under publicly accessible

version control Version control (also known as revision control, source control, and source code management) is the software engineering practice of controlling, organizing, and tracking different versions in history of computer files; primarily source code t ...

to enable third-parties to run and check specific models. 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. 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". 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." 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." An editorial from 2016 opines that closed energy models providing public policy support "are inconsistent with the open access movement nd funded research". A 2017 paper lists the benefits of open data and models and the reasons that many projects nonetheless remain closed. The paper makes a number of recommendations for projects wishing to transition to a more open approach. The authors also conclude that, in terms of openness, energy research has lagged behind other fields, most notably physics, biotechnology, and medicine. Moreover: A one-page opinion piece in ''

Nature News ''Nature'' is a British weekly scientific journal founded and based in London, England. As a multidisciplinary publication, ''Nature'' features peer-reviewed research from a variety of academic disciplines, mainly in science and technology. It ...

'' from 2017 advances the case for using open energy data and modeling to build public trust in policy analysis. The article also argues that

scientific journals Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

have a responsibility to require that data and code be submitted alongside text for scrutiny, currently only ''

Energy Economics Energy economics is a broad scientific subject area which includes topics related to supply and use of energy in societies. Considering the cost of energy services and associated value gives economic meaning to the efficiency at which energy ...

'' makes this practice mandatory within the energy domain.

Copyright and open energy data

Issues surrounding

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, ...

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 operator File:Electricity grid simple- North America.svg, 380px, Simplified diagram of AC electricity grid from generation stations to consumers in North America rect 2 243 235 438 Power station rect 276 317 412 556 Transformer rect 412 121 781 400 Elect ...

s, and electricity market operators. The doctrine of open data requires that these datasets be available under free licenses (such as ) or be in the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no Exclusive exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly Waiver, waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds ...

. But most published energy datasets carry proprietary licenses, limiting their reuse in numerical and statistical models, open or otherwise. Measures to enforce

market transparency In economics, a market is transparent if much is known by many about: What products and services or capital assets are available, market depth (quantity available), what price, and where. Transparency is important since it is one of the theore ...

have not helped because the associated information is normally licensed to preclude downstream usage. Recent transparency measures include the 2013 European energy market transparency regulation 543/2013 and a 2016 amendment to the German Energy Industry Act to establish a nation energy information platform, slated to launch on 1July 2017. Energy databases may also be protected under general database law, irrespective of the copyright status of the information they hold. In December 2017, participants from the Open Energy Modelling Initiative and allied research communities made a written submission to the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the primary Executive (government), executive arm of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with a number of European Commissioner, members of the Commission (directorial system, informall ...

on the of public sector information. The document provides a comprehensive account of the data issues faced by researchers engaged in open energy system modeling and energy market analysis and quoted extensively from a German legal opinion. In May 2020, participants from the Open Energy Modelling Initiative made a further submission on the European strategy for data. In mid2021, participants made two written submissions on a proposed Data Act legislative work-in-progress intended primarily to improve

public interest In social science and economics, public interest is "the welfare or well-being of the general public" and society. While it has earlier philosophical roots and is considered to be at the core of democratic theories of government, often paired ...

business-to-government (B2G) information transfers within the

European Economic Area The European Economic Area (EEA) was established via the ''Agreement on the European Economic Area'', an international agreement which enables the extension of the European Union's single market to member states of the European Free Trade Asso ...

(EEA). More specifically, the two Data Act submissions drew attention to restrictive but nonetheless compliant public disclosure reporting practices deployed by the

European Energy Exchange European Energy Exchange (EEX) AG is a central European electric power and related commodities exchange located in Leipzig, Germany. It develops, operates and connects secure, liquid and transparent markets for energy and related products, inc ...

(EEX).

Public policy support

In May 2016, the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

announced that "all scientific articles in Europe must be freely accessible as of 2020". 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. In August 2016, the

United States government The Federal Government of the United States of America (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the Federation#Federal governments, national government of the United States. The U.S. federal government is composed of three distinct ...

announced a new federal

policy which mandates that at least 20% of custom source code developed by or for any agency of the federal government be released as

(OSS). The

US Department of Energy US or Us most often refers to: * Us (pronoun), ''Us'' (pronoun), the objective case of the English first-person plural pronoun ''we'' * US, an abbreviation for the United States US, U.S., Us, us, or u.s. may also refer to: Arts and entertainme ...

(DOE) is participating in the program. The project is hosted on a dedicated website and subject to a three-year pilot. Open-source campaigners are using the initiative to advocate that European governments adopt similar practices. In 2017 the

Free Software Foundation Europe The Free Software Foundation Europe e.V. (FSFE) is an organization that supports free software and all aspects of the free software movement in Europe, with registered chapters in several European countries. It is a registered voluntary associat ...

(FSFE) issued a

position paper A position paper (sometimes position piece for brief items) is an essay that presents an arguable opinion about an issue – typically that of the author or some specified entity. Position papers are published in academia, in politics Polit ...

calling for free software and open standards to be central to European science funding, including the flagship EU program Horizon2020. The position paper focuses on open data and open data processing and the question of open modeling is not traversed perse.

Adoption by regulators and industry generally

A trend evident by 2023 is the adoption of regulators within the European Union and North America. Fairley(2023), writing in the

IEEE Spectrum ''IEEE Spectrum'' is a magazine edited and published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. The first issue of ''IEEE Spectrum'' was published in January 1964 as a successor to ''Electrical Engineering''. In 2010, ''IEEE Spe ...

publication, provides an overview. And as one example, the Canada Energy Regulator is using the PyPSA framework for systems analysis.

Workshops

The Open Energy Modelling Initiative participants take turns to host regular academic workshops. The Open Energy Modelling Initiative also holds occasional specialist meetings.

Notes

External links

Related to openmod
Open Energy Modelling Initiative website

Open Energy Modelling Initiative wiki

Open Energy Modelling Initiative discussion forum

Open Energy Modelling Initiative email list archive

Open Energy Modelling Initiative YouTube channel

Open Energy Modelling Initiative GitHub account

Open Energy Modelling Initiative twitter feed

Open energy data
Open Energy Platform
– a collaborative versioned database for storing open energy system model datasets * – a semantic wiki-site and database covering energy systems data worldwide
Energypedia
– a wiki-based collaborative knowledge exchange covering

sustainable energy Energy system, Energy is sustainability, sustainable if it "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Definitions of sustainable energy usually look at its effects on the e ...

topics in developing countries
Open Power System Data project
– triggered by the work of the Open Energy Modelling Initiative
OpenEI
– a US-based open energy data portal Similar initiatives
soundsoftware.ac.uk
– an open modelling community for acoustic and music software Other
REEEM
– a scientific project modeling sustainable energy futures for Europe
EERAdata
– a project exploring

FAIR A fair (archaic: faire or fayre) is a gathering of people for a variety of entertainment or commercial activities. Fairs are typically temporary with scheduled times lasting from an afternoon to several weeks. Fairs showcase a wide range of go ...

energy data for Europe

References

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