Open Models Are Not Enough. Advancing Energy System Modelling Towards Practical Usefulness

Abstract

Energy system models are increasingly used to support the urgent task of planning for the energy transition. Over the last years, they have experienced constant improvements in spatial and temporal resolution, technical detail and open disclosure of code and data. Nonetheless, disagreement persists about their usefulness and real-world relevance. This is because modellers make strong but implicit assumptions on what is sensible to consider and what is not, do not sufficiently involve stakeholders in the modelling process, and pretend that the open release of large amounts of code and data automatically translates into practical understandability. Model users increasingly perceive such shortcomings. Thus, it is urgent to provide new perspectives on how to advance the energy modelling community. We propose three practical advancements. First, expanding the open-source concept to include open assumptions communicated via an explicit statement in each study. Second, coherently combining multiple models into a cosmos of modular, interoperable models instead of using one-size-fits-all individual models too large to be understood. Third, incorporating stakeholder knowledge across all phases of the modelling process in a co-creation approach. Although challenging, we argue that such advancements are essential to achieve the quality and real-world usefulness needed for energy system models to accelerate the energy transition.