Economic Drivers Subtab

On the List Tab, when a SAE Set row is selected and expanded, an embedded set of subtabs is shown. The third is the Economic Drivers UEC subtab. This allows the user to view and modify XDriver assignments and elasticities. XDrivers are assigned to a Sector and a Type. The type (which is either Scale or UPC) determines how each factor is used in the end-use calculations. UPC stands for use per customer and indicates that the factor will be utilized to drive the intensity of equipment use. Typically drivers of this type will be things like household size, energy price, and real income per household. In contrast, Scale factors are used to indicate the size of the economy and will typically include things like number of households, employment and industrial production.

XDrivers of type UPC are used to modify energy intensity. Elasticities for these types of drivers will typically be relatively small. For example, a price elasticity for residential usage might be about -.15. UPC drivers are normalized to 1.0 in the base year and are then raised to the elasticity as a power. If multiple UPC drivers are assigned, they will interact multiplicatively, forming a geometric index.

Each XDriver is represented by a row in the subtab list. Fields indicate the sector to which the XDriver applies, the Type (UPC or Scale) and the elasticity for each category of model variable (XHeat, XCool, XOther, GenTech, and NewTech). The Economic Drivers subtab has the following fields.

  • Sector/Technology. The name of the end-use sector or technology sector to which the XDriver is to be applied.
  • XDriverID. The name of the XDriver to be applied. The drop down for this list brings up a Select Variables dialog for XDrivers configured in the system.
  • Type. One of UPC or Scale. UPC drivers impact energy intensities and Scale drivers are applied to the adjusted energy intensity values.
  • Elasticity Columns. Five columns for elasticities to be used for uses of type XHeat, XCool, XOther, GenTech and NewTech.

The embedded list in the UEC subtab has standard functionality to drag a column into the Group-By bar and to then use the bar to filter the data, for example to group end-uses by Sector or by Type.

The embedded data list can be used to Add or Delete assignments using the Add Contributor and Delete Contributor buttons on the toolbar. The assignments can also be added or modified through the Import Wizard, using:

  • Tools > Import > Long Term SAE End Use > Economic Drivers