[Information] Energy carriers

[Bachibouzouk]

I was wondering why one is allowed only to choose amongst “Electricity”, “Gas”, “Bio-Gas”, “Diesel”, “Heat”, “H2” in energyVector parameter restrictions because in the variable DEFAULT_WEIGHTS_ENERGY_CARRIERS in utils/constants.py there are more carriers.

It seems to me the list be easily expanded or even be a user input (with a default when no input from user) and that we could add to this list the CO2 emission numbers and the source of the number and make the dict a CSV file so it can be easily included in the documentation as well :)

[Bachibouzouk]

Any idea @ciaradunks @smartie2076 ?

[smartie2076]

I was wondering why one is allowed only to choose amongst “Electricity”, “Gas”, “Bio-Gas”, “Diesel”, “Heat”, “H2” in energyVector parameter restrictions because in the variable DEFAULT_WEIGHTS_ENERGY_CARRIERS in utils/constants.py there are more carriers.

When in doubt, I would assume that the readthedocs is outdated. Did you do a simulation test with the other carriers mentioned there? Then simply change the readthedoc.

It seems to me the list be easily expanded or even be a user input (with a default when no input from user) and that we could add to this list the CO2 emission numbers and the source of the number and make the dict a CSV file so it can be easily included in the documentation as well :)

For the terminal-based MVS I do not think it makes sense to allow a user input, as then the users have to edit the code itself, which may be dangerous. If you install it as a package, you also can not easily edit the code.

You could somehow integrate that user unput for the UI, though, and there are some applications where it makes sense (for example Bio-Diesel). Maybe it is easiest if you add a csv file "energyCarriers.csv for that feature - and then it also becomes usable by MVS terminal users.

we could add to this list the CO2 emission numbers

You mean in the constants.py? That is a good idea! It does not work for "Heat" or "Electricity" though, as these are not chemical energy carriers as the other examples. For those sources (including energyproviders) one would still need to define the CO2-emissions per unit.

I think the chemical energy carriers that are defined by norms (crude oil with a margin of variance, diesel, gasoline) might be rather the ones that don´t need to be user-defined, while sources for "H2" or "Bio-Diesel" might need a user-defined input as the CO2 emissions are well related to how the carrier was produced.