Details on /data/home section

[pmu]

Hi all,

I'm developing the carbon calculator of itstheplanet.co.uk, and I have
some questions on the AMEE data, especially on the /home section.
Hoping somebody will be able to help...

1 - I understood that AMEE provides complementary data sets, of
different levels of accuracy, and one should use these data according
to the data that the end user is ready or able to provide. But
sometimes we have the possibility to choose (eg if the user has got
one bill in hand, he can input either kWh or GBP). Then we should
propose the most accurate path to the user. I think the level of
accuracy of data is the following, but it would be nice if you could
confirm (from the most accurate to the less accurate):
/home/energy/uk/suppliers
/home/energy/uk/price
/home/energy/uk/seasonal
/home/heating
2 - I'm also hesitating between /home/energy/quantity and /home/energy/
uk/price for users in UK having their bills in hand.
3 - When monthly values are entered, (eg /home/energy/uk/suppliers),
why doesn't it depend on the month (especially if the amount entered
includes the heating consumption)?
3 - for users not living in the UK, we plan to use the /home/energy/
electricity and /home/energy/quantity sections. Is that correct?
4 - what is the unit of the profile item value named "Usage Per
Quarter" in the profile items of /home/energy/UK/seasonal? GB Pounds?
5 - One confirmation: CO2 amounts of appliances (/home/appliances
subcategories profile items) correspond to the CO2 emission due to
their electric consumption? (in other terms, if the user entered is
electricity bills, the /home/appliances CO2 should not be added to his
total carbon footprint?)

Thank you very much for your help!

Pascal

[Andrew Conway]

Hi Pascal

Good questions!

> I think the level of
> accuracy of data is the following, but it would be nice if you could
> confirm (from the most accurate to the less accurate):
> /home/energy/uk/suppliers
> /home/energy/uk/price
> /home/energy/uk/seasonal
> /home/heating
>

yes, that seems reasonable.

> 2 - I'm also hesitating between /home/energy/quantity and /home/energy/
> uk/price for users in UK having their bills in hand.
>

quantity is always the most accurate for fuels.

> 3 - When monthly values are entered, (eg /home/energy/uk/suppliers),
> why doesn't it depend on the month (especially if the amount entered
> includes the heating consumption)?
>

Good point. Many monthly payment plans [but not all] in the UK work by
paying a fixed "average" amount every month so that there is no
variation with season.

> 3 - for users not living in the UK, we plan to use the /home/energy/
> electricity and /home/energy/quantity sections. Is that correct?
>

Yes, that's correct. If you have reliable prices for other countries I
can add them into AMEE in the future.

> 4 - what is the unit of the profile item value named "Usage Per
> Quarter" in the profile items of /home/energy/UK/seasonal? GB Pounds?
>

Either - it gives you an "average" monthly value back but doesn't
convert it to CO2. For example, a user tells you they use 1000 kWh of
gas in the summer, so set usagePerQuarter=1000, then the value returned
by a seasonal profile item will be 1000/0.12=694 [typically 12% of the
annual bill is in the summer]. This means they use 694 kWh per month
which you can then enter into a quantity profile item to get kgCO2.

> 5 - One confirmation: CO2 amounts of appliances (/home/appliances
> subcategories profile items) correspond to the CO2 emission due to
> their electric consumption? (in other terms, if the user entered is
> electricity bills, the /home/appliances CO2 should not be added to his
> total carbon footprint?)
>

Yes, that's correct.

This is the kind of information I like to add to wiki.co2.dgen.net - but
if you beat me to it I won't complain :)

Andrew

[AMEE]

seeing if I can delete the sp4m word that's appeared in the subject...

[pmu]

Hi all,

First of all, thanks Andrew for your answers to my preceding
questions... a long time ago, now.

I'm trying to use the /home/energy/UK/seasonal data set. If I
understood well, these profile items give back a percentage of the
entered usagePerQuarter, that should be used as input in other profile
items in order to get corresponding CO2 amount. Here are 2 questions
regarding this system:

1/ Can we use the /home/energy/UK/seasonal items to input GBP amounts?

2/ I guess the second profile item (where we input the result of /home/
energy/UK/seasonal items) should be chosen regarding the type of
energy selected by the user while drilling-down the /home/energy/UK/
seasonal category. So I'd like to clarify this correspondance between
energies in "seasonal" and the profile items in which the outputs of
seasonal profile items can/should be used.

2.1/ If answer to question 1 is yes and if the user input a GBP amount
for this quarter, I think the correspondance is clear, except for
"solidFuel":
gas => would create a profile item in /home/energy/uk/price/gas normal
or gas prepayment
oil => would create a profile item in /home/energy/uk/price/oil
solidFuel => would create a profile item in /home/energy/uk/price/
coal ?????
electricity and electricity with heating =>would create a profile item
in /home/energy/uk/price/electricity normal or prepayment

2.2/ If user has his quarterly bill in hand, I planned to redirect him
to the choice of supppliers (/home/energy/uk/suppliers) in order to
determine the better final profile item. Is it correct? Or is it more
acurate to just use /home/energy/electricity and /home/energy/
quantity?

Thanks for your answers!!

Pascal

[Andrew Conway]

Hi Pascal

> 1/ Can we use the /home/energy/UK/seasonal items to input GBP amounts?
>

Yes, if you put GBP values in you can treat the returned values as GBP
- this is one exception where the returned value isn't kgCO2.

> 2.1/ If answer to question 1 is yes and if the user input a GBP amount
> for this quarter, I think the correspondance is clear, except for
> "solidFuel":
> gas => would create a profile item in /home/energy/uk/price/gas normal
> or gas prepayment
> oil => would create a profile item in /home/energy/uk/price/oil
> solidFuel => would create a profile item in /home/energy/uk/price/
> coal ?????
> electricity and electricity with heating =>would create a profile item
> in /home/energy/uk/price/electricity normal or prepayment
>

Sorry, don't follow - what's the problem with coal?

> 2.2/ If user has his quarterly bill in hand, I planned to redirect him
> to the choice of supppliers (/home/energy/uk/suppliers) in order to
> determine the better final profile item. Is it correct? Or is it more
> acurate to just use /home/energy/electricity and /home/energy/
> quantity?
>

Using the supplier would be most accurate if they have provided info
on how much they spend on a fuel.

Andre

[pmu]

Hi to all,

Here are some answers to Andrew's last post...

> Sorry, don't follow - what's the problem with coal?

Simply that, after defining a seasonal profile item of energy
"solidFuel", I don't know in which profile item I should send the
corresponding amountPerMonth. Is it correct to send it to a uk/price/
coal or energy/quantity/coal profile item (depending if user input was
in GBP or kg)?

> Using the supplier would be most accurate if they have provided info
> on how much they spend on a fuel.

Sorry, I don't understand. Suppliers profile items require a
kWhPerMonth input, so if I route the user towards a user interface
asking him to choose his supplier and enter the kWh amount of his
quarterly bill, then I convert this input into a monthly value using
the right seasonal profile item before inputting it to the supplier
profile item, would it be correct?

I made a table of these correspondances seasonal profile items =>
profile items to use to get a CO2 amount. Here it is, in case it is
useful:
http://maatala.free.fr/amee/seasonal-sumup.pdf

Hope it is right and it might be useful. I did not put any seasonal
profile item yet because of the question I still have above; I used
energy/quantity and energy/electricity instead.

Thanks!

Pascal

[Andrew Conway]

>> Sorry, don't follow - what's the problem with coal?
> Simply that, after defining a seasonal profile item of energy
> "solidFuel", I don't know in which profile item I should send the
> corresponding amountPerMonth. Is it correct to send it to a uk/price/
> coal or energy/quantity/coal profile item (depending if user input was
> in GBP or kg)?
>

Yes, that's correct. The seasonal profile item converts
from from quarterly to monthly and isn't concenred about
the units you're using. So if you give it a figure
which is GBP per quarter, the value returns will be GBP per month.

>> Using the supplier would be most accurate if they have provided info
>> on how much they spend on a fuel.
> Sorry, I don't understand. Suppliers profile items require a
> kWhPerMonth input, so if I route the user towards a user interface
> asking him to choose his supplier and enter the kWh amount of his
> quarterly bill, then I convert this input into a monthly value using
> the right seasonal profile item before inputting it to the supplier
> profile item, would it be correct?
>

Yes, you're right, my mistake, that should be:

Using the supplier would be most accurate if they have provided info

on how many kWh they use.

> I made a table of these correspondances seasonal profile items =>
> profile items to use to get a CO2 amount. Here it is, in case it is
> useful:
> http://maatala.free.fr/amee/seasonal-sumup.pdf
>

Yes, that seems correct to me, thanks for putting it together.

Andrew