v1.0 (2024-10-21)

Preamble

The first major release of Scout marks nearly a decade of development on the tool, going back to late January 2015. Scout has grown from its origins as a spreadsheet-based tool with a limited focus on prioritizing across energy-efficient technologies to an extensive Python-based framework for rapidly exploring multiple scenarios of U.S. building energy, emissions, and costs under many different types of technical, market, and policy interventions. Scout’s growth and flexibility has ensured that the tool continues to address the most pressing issues for program managers and policy analysts both within DOE and beyond—from building R&D prioritization to building-grid interactions and decarbonization pathways, among many others.

This release reflects the broad capabilities that are required to tackle such diverse analysis needs and sets a robust foundation for the tool’s future development. With this release, we introduce significant updates to enhance user functionality, increase code extensibility, and expand analysis capabilities.

What's New

• Restructure the Scout project
  • Create Scout python package for easy and consistent installation of software dependencies.
  • Reorganize file structure of Scout directory.
  • Refactor assignment of file paths for consistency across the codebase.
  • Integrate the configuration file schema with the argument parser and documentation to maintain consistency when updating arguments.
  • Add integration testing that executes a full Scout run and checks results against reference data.
• Add new execution capabilities
  • Introduce scenario configuration files (.yml) as inputs for Scout workflow steps.
  • Add batch run capability to run multiple scenarios in succession.
  • Facilitate user selection of subsets of measures/packages for a given scenario.
  • Enable measure definition shorthands for warm/cold regions and add new regional breakout options to performance/cost/market scaling inputs.
  • Refactor argument handling so that all inputs are passed via the command line or with a scenario configuration file, eliminating user prompts.
  • Pre-screen all measure inputs before preparation and continue processing measure set even when individual measure preparation errors.
• Add new analysis and reporting capabilities
  • Assess sensitivity cases for fugitive emissions estimates.
  • Define specific pairs of heating/cooling segments in relevant measure definitions and restrict competition to other measures with the same pairing.
  • Link stock turnover calculations across multiple end uses within the same measure (e.g., heating/cooling/ventilation).
  • Report portion of efficient-case energy results that is attributable to measure (vs. remaining baseline technology).
• Update input data
  • Grid emissions factors updated to Cambium 2023, state resolution added.
  • Baseline hourly load shapes updated to latest BuildStock EULP releases, state resolution added.
  • Updated mapping datasets for translation between different region settings.
  • Update to latest Social Cost of Carbon and Consumer Price Index estimates.
  • Corrections to commercial other/unspecified estimates.
  • Add scripts to pull state-level estimates from EIA API and update Cambium data.
• Update documentation to reflect new capabilities.
• Minor bug fixes and code refactoring throughout.

v0.9.1 (2023-12-18)

What's New

• Revise method for allocating end use electricity baselines in AEO from census divisions to EMM regions and states by using End Use Load Profiles data
• Add pyproject.toml file to enable one line installation of all packages required by Scout
• Add CPU and memory profiling to continuous integration testing on GitHub Actions
• Improve robustness of baseline data file preparation modules
• Minor fixes to measure data preparation and run modules and Read the Docs configuration

v0.9 (2023-10-10)

What's New

• Update to AEO 2023
  • Update energy and stock and technology cost, performance, and lifetime data
  • Update site-source energy conversions, CO2 emissions intensities, and energy prices
  • Revise peak and take period definitions to be consistent with 2023 EMM projections
  • Add new commercial miscellaneous electric load (MEL) categories and update numeric encoding of commercial MELs
• Update available AEO data and related infrastructure
  • Add federal and state cost incentives that reduce the initial cost of upgrades
  • For residential buildings, break out total installed costs for new versus existing buildings
  • For commercial buildings, begin pulling in "unspecified" building type and MELs technology type energy use data
  • Add tech_switch_to field to measures to ensure appropriate incentives are applied
  • Update measure definitions with tech_switch_to field
• Update to EIA API v2
• Update time series electricity costs and all emissions intensity data for moderate and high decarbonization scenarios to use 2022 Cambium scenarios and data
• Fix minor bugs in stock units handling and fugitive emissions calculations

v0.8.2 (2023-06-29)

What's New

• Update ECMs
  • Reflect current standards and specifications, e.g., IECC and ASHRAE 90.1, ENERGY STAR
  • Incorporate more recent reports on electrification costs
  • Incorporate latest EIA reference case equipment cost and performance data
• Add ground-source heat pump ECMs at ENERGY STAR and Best Available performance levels
• Update supporting data
  • Grid emissions, TSV carbon and cost files (based on NREL Cambium 2022)
  • Consumer price index data
  • Social cost of carbon
• Fix assorted bugs and improve robustness of plotting code, savings calculations, and results breakouts

v0.8.1 (2023-02-28)

What's New

• Update building envelope component cost, performance, and lifetime data
• Account for technology efficiency in service-demand-weighting of commercial building energy use
• Revise hourly price projections to approximate the effect of electricity prices being composed of fixed and hourly charges, and adjust them accordingly
• Adjust TSV savings shape calculations to account for slight differences in the baseline between the savings shape CSVs and the main baseline file tsv_load.gz
• Fix assorted bugs with plotting code, savings calculations, retrofit rate, and other features

v0.8 (2022-08-31)

What's New

• Update to AEO 2022
  • Remove DVD players and add over-the-top streaming devices
  • Split out residential pool heaters and pool pumps
  • Add new residential miscellaneous electric loads
  • Update site-source energy conversions, CO₂ emissions intensities, and energy prices to 2022 projections
  • Revise peak and take period definitions to be consistent with 2022 EMM projections

v0.7.3 (2022-08-31)

What's New

• Update example measure set to be consistent with the latest Benchmark Scenarios
• Add fugitive emissions accounting
  • Add accounting of CO₂-equivalent emissions from fugitive sources, including equipment refrigerant leakage and natural gas supply chain methane leakage
  • Add user options to assess emissions impacts from either one or both of these sources in the ecm_prep.py module
  • Add user options to assess conventional refrigerants (including phase-out dates) as well as custom or low-GWP alternatives
• Switch results figure generation code from R to Python
• Revise commercial other energy handling to ingest all baseline commercial energy use data
  • Add 'other' end use for all fuel types to all commercial building types
  • Add unique commercial 'unspecified' building type used for electricity for water services and telecom systems, as well as other fossil fuel energy
• Update hourly baseline load shapes and flexibility measures
  • Add distinct load/load savings shapes for all three residential building types
  • Revise flexibility measure characteristics to respond to updated peak/take periods consistent with 2022 EMM projections
  • Update hourly load data generated with ResStock v2.5.0 and DOE Commercial Prototypes run with OpenStudio v3.3.0

v0.7.2 (2022-05-31)

What's New

• Uncompeted, competed, captured stock reporting in results
• Detailed results breakout user options
  • All regions (for states, EMM regions)
  • Building type (instead of building class)
  • Fuel type
• Update to 2021 Cambium scenarios; add support for 95% by 2050 and 95% by 2035 Cambium scenarios
• Incorporate T&D losses in EMM region and state emissions factors
• Introduce support for technology diffusion parameters in ECM definitions to limit an ECM's adoption to below its maximum adoption potential
• Updates to calculations
  • Competed stock shares for heat pumps
  • Envelope measure cost packaging
  • Cost conversions
  • Captured stock in the year of a measure's market exit

v0.7.1.1 (2022-02-14)

What's New

• Update documentation to reflect new features added in v0.7.1
• Update peak and take window documentation to system load shapes from 2020 AEO NEMS EMM data
• Move test peak and take periods to a dedicated test file
• Fix cost conversion calculations for measures that apply to all residential or commercial buildings

v0.7.1 (2022-01-31)

What's New

• Translate commercial baseline stock and stock cost data to service demand units (e.g., kBtu/h heating served, $/kBtu/h heating served)
• Reduce data processing and write-out requirements for sector-level savings shape generation
• Refine stock turnover calculations and handling of measures with later market entry years within measure competition routines
• Fix bugs in the handling of building types and fuel splits in plotting routine
• Add several new user options, including:
  • Introduce reference case technologies to measure competition
  • Select from four scenarios of exogenous fuel switching conversion rates to determine fuel switching measure market shares
  • Select an alternate forecast for electricity carbon intensity consistent with 80% grid decarbonization by 2050
  • Use an alternate baseline forecast of electricity carbon intensity
  • Assume early retrofitting of equipment at technology-specific rates that can be increased by the user over time
  • Generate data for separating equipment vs. envelope impacts in packaged measures
  • Report more detailed breakouts of results by region and/or building type