U.S. building energy efficiency and flexibility as an electric grid resource (Data and Code)

* New in Version 2.1 *

• All residential measure savings shapes data (Latest_Res_Shapes.zip and residential measures in Latest_BM_Shapes.zip) were updated to correct post-processing errors present in version 2.

• The raw baseline-case data that are used in Scout to estimate sector-level baseline hourly loads (file tsv_load) are now included in this data resource (see files Latest_Res_Baselines.zip and Latest_Com_Baselines.zip).

• Additional residential measure run documentation is available (here for all except water heating efficiency plus flexibility (EE+DF) measure and here for the water heating EE+DF measure).

• A guide to reading and/or preparing savings shapes CSVs is available in the Scout documentation, p. 36. The documentation also summarizes the net system load conditions that measures with flexibility (DF) characteristics respond to (Table 1, p. 37).

* New in Version 2 *

All hourly savings shapes CSV files that support the original analysis have been updated to reflect the following improvements:

• Generate residential data using ResStock v2.5.0 and commercial data using DOE Commercial Prototypes generated with OpenStudio v3.3.0.

• Residential and commercial measures with flexibility (DF) features respond to updated grid conditions (net peak/low load periods) that are consistent with projections from the EIA 2022 Annual Energy Outlook (AEO) “Low renewables cost” side case.

• Residential baseline loads and load savings are now distinguished by three building types (single family, multi family, and mobile homes).

Updated savings shape CSVs are organized into three ZIP files that may be separately downloaded depending on user interests:

Latest_BM_Shapes.zip includes only the subset of savings shape CSVs needed to execute the Scout Benchmark Scenarios.

Latest_Res_Shapes.zip includes all residential savings shape CSVs.

Latest_Com_Shapes.zip includes all commercial savings shape CSVs.

Baseline load shapes in Scout have also been updated based on the same versions of ResStock and the DOE Commercial Prototypes, and peak/take period impact calculations have been updated to reflect the 2022 AEO system conditions. These updated data are contained in Scout v0.8 (see ./supporting_data/tsv_data).

Summary of Original Data Files

These data underpin an analysis of the near- and long-term technical potential bulk power grid resource offered by best available U.S. building efficiency and flexibility measures. Using multiple openly-available modeling frameworks supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, including Scout, ResStock, and the Commercial Building Prototype Models, we pair bottom-up simulations of measures' building-level impacts with regional representations of the building stock and its projected electricity use to estimate the impacts of multiple building efficiency and flexibility scenarios on hourly regional system loads across the contiguous U.S. in 2030 and 2050. We find that demand-side management via building efficiency and flexibility could avoid up to nearly ⅓ of annual fossil-fired generation and ½ of fossil-fired capacity additions after 2020. Results are reported at both the national and regional scales and are disaggregated by building type and end use, facilitating a quantitative understanding of the role that buildings as a whole and specific building technologies or operational approaches can play in the future evolution of the U.S. electricity system.

The four ZIP files that make up this data record are interpreted as follows:

Measure_Data.zip: Includes the Scout energy conservation measure (ECM) JSON definitions that were used to generate the main baseline and efficient/flexible scenario results ("Baseline_Measures" and "Efficiency_Flexibility_Measures", respectively), as well as side cases that assess the sensitivity of results to higher levels of variable renewable penetration ("High_RE_Sensitivity_Analysis") and a high degree of building load electrification ("High_Electrification_Measures"). Each measure set includes supporting 8760 load savings shapes in the sub-folder "Savings_Shapes". Additional details about defining and interpreting Scout measures with time-sensitive analysis features are available here.

Results_Data.zip: Includes the main and side case results data. Baseline-case outcomes, which are consistent with the EIA 2019 Annual Energy Outlook, are stored in "Baseline_Loads". Efficient/flexible scenario results are stored in "Efficiency_Flexibility_Measure_Impacts_Individual" and "Efficiency_Flexibility_Measure_Impacts_Portfolio," respectively, where the former includes results for individual measures in our analysis without considering any interactions across measures, and the latter includes results for aggregations of energy efficiency (EE), demand flexibility (DF), and efficiency and flexibility (EE+DF) portfolios that do consider interactions across measures in each portfolio. Results for the high electrification side case are stored in the "High_Electrification" sub-folder in the EE+DF case only. Results for the high renewable sensitivity analysis are stored in "High_RE_Sensitivity_Analysis", and residential and commercial 8760 savings shape outcomes for each of the EE, DF, and EE+DF measure portfolios and five of the 2019 EIA Electricity Market Module (EMM) regions (p.6) of focus are stored in "Sector_Level_8760s".

Source_Code.zip: Includes the source code needed to translate the measure inputs provided in "Measures_Data.zip" into the outputs provided in "Results_Data.zip". The core set of files required to execute the main analysis results is stored in "Base_Code_Package", while variants to certain files in the core package needed to execute the high renewable sensitivity and high electrification side cases are stored in "Code_Variants". In general, the process of running an analysis is as described in the Scout Quick Start Guide; however, the file "ecm_prep_batch.py" should be substituted for "ecm_prep.py" and the file "run_batch.py" should be substituted for "run.py". These batch files execute multiple versions of "ecm_prep.py" and "run.py" that are tailored to generate individual measure and whole portfolio results for annual, net peak summer and winter, and net off-peak summer and winter metrics (individual measures: "ecm_prep.json," "ecm_prep_spa," "ecm_prep_wpa," "ecm_prep_sta," "ecm_prep_wta"; whole portfolio: "ecm_results.json," "ecm_results_spa.json," "ecm_results_wpa.json," and "ecm_results_sta.json," and "ecm_results_wta.json"). Results for the side cases are generated by replacing the versions of the "ecm_prep" and "run" files included in the "Base_Code_Package" folder with those in the "Code_Variants" folder. Sector-level 8760 shapes are generated using the "--sect_shapes" command line option as described here. See Scout's Local Execution Tutorials for more details on how to develop Scout inputs and outputs.

Supporting_Data.zip: Includes supplemental data files provided by EIA that describe key inputs and outputs to the Electricity Market Module in the AEO 2019 run of the National Energy Modeling System ("EIA EMM Data (AEO 2019)"), as well as raw EnergyPlus outputs that were used to develop the baseline Scout hourly load shape file found in "./Source_Code/Base_Code_Package/supporting_data/tsv_data/tsv_load.json".