PhD Thesis - Energy Systems Research Unit - University of Strathclyde

awarded on a random basis following a uniform distribution.2.4.2.3 Stage 3 - Accounting for improvements in energy-efficiencyIn order to obtain the yearly scaling factors by which the individual applianceprofiles could be transformed to reflect changes due to efficiency improvements, datafrom the UK’s DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)Market Transformation Program (MTP) [38] was used. Although the data is based ona UK program and the profiles under investigation are those of Italian households (asrepresentative of Mediterranean households), the fact that the assumptions and policyinstruments used in the MTP are mostly based on the EU wide energy-efficiencylabelling program [39] ensures the intra-country validity and hence that theassumptions contained in them can be extended to this study as well. The MTP setsout the envisaged improvements due to energy-efficiency in specific appliances up to2020. In practice, these improvements mimic what would happen to appliance energyconsumption, should households change their existing appliances to more energyefficient ones. The data used, effectively comes from a database used within theMTP program, namely, the “What If?Tool” [40]. The database presents future energyconsumption for a number of commercial and residential appliances under differentpolicy scenarios. One of these scenarios named the Earliest Best Practice Scenariospecifies what would happen to various appliances’ electrical energy consumptionshould the market adopt the best available technologies ignoring financial or othermarket barriers.Based on the “What If?Tool” Earliest Best Practice Scenario’s data, the scalingfactors for each appliance were obtained by dividing the electrical energyconsumption used in 2008 (the reference year for the REMODECE datasets), by theexpected consumption in 2020. In most cases the scaling factor is simply a result ofthe technology’s development and so it applies to the device average power draw.For example, for appliances such as lighting and television, the scaling factor reflectsthe fact that the time period during which such appliances will be active will remainunchanged, and the change will only be due to changes in the electrical powerdemand of that appliance. However, in some cases the scaling factor is the result of52