Sets

Sets Defined

All variable arrays are indexed by sets. Sets are ordered collections of distinct objects, or elements, considered as a single entity. Examples include the set of areas, fuels, enduses, technologies, economic categories, and years represented in the model.

Model sets are defined in .csv files in the \Database\Sets folder (example: Area.csv).

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Note: For a complete listing of sets along with their associated descriptors and keys, see Sets Used to Define Energy Model Variables in the Appendix.

Set Keys and Descriptors

Each set has an associated set key and a set descriptor. The set keys are especially important to because they are commonly used to reference specific elements of the set (such as selecting on the natural gas fuel).

Below is an example of the Enduse set and its associated key names and descriptors:

Set Name	Key	Descriptor
Enduse	Heat	Space Heating
	HW	Water Heating
	OthSub Refrig	Other Substitutables Refrigeration
	Light	Lighting
	AC	Air Conditioning
	OthNSub	Other Non-Substitutables

Set name: The set name is used to identify which sets are being selected or modified in the code. Examples of set names are: Area, EC, ECC, Fuel, Tech, Enduse, and Year. Use this name to refer to the set when writing output text files.

Set descriptor: The set descriptor is a variable that stores descriptors for each of the set elements. The set descriptor variable is named as: set name plus DS (ex: EnduseDS). The set descriptors for the Enduse set are shown in the table above. Descriptors are commonly used in input data files (.dat) and output files. Another example is for the residential "EC" set (economic categories). The set descriptors for the EC set (ECDS) consist of: Single Family Attached, Single Family Detached, Multi Family and Other Family.

Set key: The set key is a variable that stores shorter names for the elements of a set, and it cannot contain spaces. The set keys for the Enduse set above consist of short names, such as Heat for Space Heat or HW for Water Heating. In the residential EC set, the set keys are not shorter than the descriptors, but they have the spaces removed SingleFamilyDetached, SingleFamilyAttached, MultiFamily and OtherFamily.