Ontology: Include a new class called ownership which separates autoproducer power plants from public power plants

[Vera-IER]

Description of the issue

All types of power plants (also the renewable ones) can be devided into public power plants or autoproducer power plants. Public power plants belong to the public electricity sector and autoproducer plants belong to the industry sector. I cannot find such a differenciation in the ontology. In energy sytem models there are usually both types of power plants represented, but it might be that in electricity market models there are just the public power plants represented.

Ideas of solution

There are two ideas of solution:

1. We could include a class called _ownership_ and devide the power plants into _public_ and _autoproducer_ power plants.
2. We could use the existing class _sector devision_ and devide the power plants into belonging to _electricity sector_ and _industry sector_.

Workflow checklist

• [x ] I discussed the issue with someone else than me before working on a solution
• [x ] I already read the latest version of the workflow for this repository
• [ x] I added this issue to the Project 'Issues'. If suitable, I add it to further Projects.
• [ x] The goal of this ontology is clear to me

I am aware that

• [x ] every new entry in the ontology should have an annotation
• [x ] classes should arise from concepts rather than from words

[0UmfHxcvx5J7JoaOhFSs5mncnisTJJ6q]

We could include a class called ownership and devide the power plants into public and autoproducer power plants.

Makes sense to me, although I don't think "ownership" would be a useful term for this. I think the distinction is quite arcane to people not familiar with it and can safely be ignored by models that do not represent the distinction. So the term does not have to be immediately clear to everyone. But "ownership" will generate false associations for a lot of people.

From the IEA "Energy Balances of OECD Countries: Beyond 2020 Documentation":

Main activity producers generate electricity and/or heat for sale to third parties, as their primary activity. They may be privately or publicly owned. Note that the sale need not take place through the public grid.

Autoproducer undertakings generate electricity and/or heat, wholly or partly for their own use as an activity which supports their primary activity. They may be privately or publicly owned.

So maybe something like "activity focus"?

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We could use the existing class sector devision and devide the power plants into belonging to electricity sector and industry sector.

I think that would wreck the normal distinction between supply and demand sectors (it would for REMIND) and probably wouldn't make life easier for models representing only energy supply.

[Vera-IER]

Yes thats true, the suggested names could be missleading. I just found a nice definition from the European Commission:

Types of Producer:
Producers are classified according to the purpose of production:
Main Activity Producer (formerly known as public) undertakings generate electricity and/or heat for sale to third parties, as their primary activity. They may be privately or publicly owned. Note that the sale need not take place through the public grid.
Autoproducer undertakings generate electricity and/or heat, wholly or partly for their own use as an activity which supports their primary activity. They may be privately or publicly owned.

So let's go with _type of producers_, _main activity producer_ and _autoproducer_?

[Vera-IER]

I don't now if the source of the definition is needed? It's this one: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/38154/41386/Ele_AQ_documentation.pdf/a06bf650-1830-4fcb-9376-7be1f8ab080c

[l-emele]

Those definitions from the European Commission and IEA help a lot. But in the end we need an Aristotelian definiton.

[0UmfHxcvx5J7JoaOhFSs5mncnisTJJ6q]

I don't now if the source of the definition is needed? It's this one: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/38154/41386/Ele_AQ_documentation.pdf/a06bf650-1830-4fcb-9376-7be1f8ab080c

Sources are nice. The PDF is actually archived. The IEA documentation doesn't seem to be publicly available.

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Being proper Aristotelian and camel-casing, we get:

A MainActivityProducer is a ProducerType that generates electricity and/or heat for sale to third parties as their primary activity.

and

An AutoProducer is a ProducerType that generates electricity and/or heat, wholly or partly for their own use as an activity which supports their primary activity.

Browsing around, I would stick it all beneath "organisation".

An organization is a structure with multiple people that has a collective goal.

Which would give

A ProducerType is an Organisation that genereates electricity and/or heat.

Reads a quite contrived, but I get the feeling that's what ontologies are like.

Can we get some feedback/input from @OpenEnergyPlatform/ontology-experts ?

[akleinau]

CamelCasing just got replaced with normal lower case because of the change to numerical identifiers. Templates are updated in roughly 10 seconds from now.

[akleinau]

Templates are updated, new rules, so new defs:

A main activity producer is a producer type that generates electricity and/or heat for sale to third parties as their primary activity.

An auto producer is a producer type that generates electricity and/or heat, wholly or partly for their own use as an activity which supports their primary activity.

A producer type is an organisation that generates electricity and/or heat.

[akleinau]

"an organisation that generates electricity and/or heat" sounds a bit misleading as an organisation consists mainly of a group of people and those people don't generate the electricity, their machines etc do.

btw the upcoming def of organisation is: "A role depending on a society that has a collective goal."

so what is meant is that the goal of the producers is to generate electricity and/or heat?

[l-emele]

These definitions read good. As this is related to markets and economic activities and I would assume this goes into the oeo-social module? I added the respective label

[akleinau]

definitely social

[akleinau]

do we need the Type suffix? this reads a bit cumbersome

[l-emele]

so what is meant is that the goal of the producers is to generate electricity and/or heat?

The ultimate goal of these organisations is earn money. :) Some of them sell electricity and/or heat, these are the main activity producers. Other have power plants which assist their production process with electricity and/or heat to produce goods (or services). The latter don't sell the electricity and/or heat but the produced products.

(This is probably obvious to you, but sometimes it helps to spell this out in such an explicit way.)

[akleinau]

then a producer is an organisation that is active in the energy production domain (pr sth in that sense?)

[akleinau]

or we just leave it as "an organisation that generates electricity and/or heat" as long as the domain experts understand what is meant ;)

[akleinau]

I just really don't like the "Type" suffix

[l-emele]

do we need the Type suffix? this reads a bit cumbersome

I just really don't like the "Type" suffix

Yes, "type" is also weird to me. It is somehow an objectification of a property.

@jannahastings : Any thoughts on this?

[jannahastings]

I agree, we should not use "type" in the name or definition. After all, _everything_ in the ontology is a type, unless it is an individual.

How about introducing "organisational energy producer": def=An organisation that undertakes generating electricity and/or heat to sell to third parties.
SubClassOf: organisation and has_role some 'producer' (role)

I would also recommend adding "energy" in the other labels as well, because otherwise, for example, "auto producer" reads as though is is cars that are being made.

"main activity energy producer": def=An organisational energy producer in which energy or heat production is their primary activity.
Comment: They may be privately or publicly owned. Note that the sale need not take place through the public grid.

"auto energy producer": def=An organisational energy producer in which energy or heat producition wholly or partly for their own use as an activity which supports their primary activity.
Comment: They may be privately or publicly owned.

[Vera-IER]

How about introducing "organisational energy producer": def=An organisation that undertakes generating electricity and/or heat to sell to third parties.
SubClassOf: organisation and has_role some 'producer' (role)

I think the last part of the definition for "organisational energy producer" is not correct (to sell to third parties). That applies only to "main activity energy producers". We should delete that part:
def=An organisation that undertakes generating electricity and/or heat.

"main activity energy producer" sounds good to me.

The term "autoproducer" is one word and cannot be seperated as far as I know, so I would go with "energy autoproducer".

[stap-m]

then a producer is an organisation that is active in the energy production domain (or sth in that sense?)

We already have a class producer which is a subclass of agent which might also fit as classification (better that organisation?).
Its def is at the moment: A producer is an agent that makes goods to sell them.
The def could be extended like that A producer is an agent that makes goods for selling or self consumption.

[l-emele]

Is the for _selling or self consumption_ part needed? _A producer is an agent that makes goods_ is more generic. In my view someone who produced something but does not sell something is still a producer.

A relevant example in energy modeling: There are people who own a small rooftop PV system and generate (produce) electricity for own consumption and do not sell the electricity to someone else. In my view these people are still producers.

[l-emele]

Btw, do we have a proper definition of _good_? Are electricity and heat goods?

[akleinau]

Btw, do we have a proper definition of _good_? Are electricity and heat goods?

no but we have an issue to include economic goods #340.

[akleinau]

so in conclusion:

• producer: "an agent that makes goods"

• organisational energy producer:: "An organisation that undertakes generating electricity and/or heat."
  SubClassOf: organisation and has_role some 'producer' (role)

• "main activity energy producer": "An organisational energy producer whose primary activity is energy or heat production."
  Comment: They may be privately or publicly owned. Note that the sale need not take place through the public grid.

• "energy autoproducer": "An organisational energy producer who produces energy or heat wholly or partly for their own use as an activity which supports their primary activity."
  Comment: They may be privately or publicly owned.

[akleinau]

I don't see many advantages of either implementing it as a subclass of producer or organisation.
Maybe that as a subclass of producer it allows auto energy producers to be direct subclass of the organisation fitting to their primary activity and to just have 'auto energy producer' as a role?

[jannahastings]

Two small changes:

* **organisational energy producer:** "a producer that undertakes generating electricity and/or heat."

Just a minor point, maybe change to "a producer that undertakes the generation of electricity and/or heat"

* **"auto energy producer":** "An organisational energy producer who produces energy or heat wholly or partly for their own use as an activity which supports their primary activity."

I think this should be named energy autoproducer as per @Vera-IER's comment above.

[akleinau]

I changed my comment :)

[jannahastings]

I don't see many advantages of either implementing it as a subclass of producer or organisation.
Maybe that as a subclass of producer it allows auto energy producers to be direct subclass of the organisation fitting to their primary activity and to just have 'auto energy producer' as a role?

My original thinking in my comment above was that the definition of agent is as a role, and in this case it is the organisation that has the role, so "organisational energy producer" should be _classified_ as a child of organisation and has_role producer

[akleinau]

I'll change my comment, I think that makes sense.
@stap-m do you agree?

[stap-m]

• How would these people with small rooftop PV systems be classified? They are energy autoproducers but are not organisational.
• If we made organisational energy producer a subclass of organisation, we should call them energy producing organisation instead?!

[Vera-IER]

The ones having a small rooftop PV system also need to be registerd with a trade license, so they are also tiny business organisations. This is true for Germany, I don't know how it works in other countries. We call them prosumers, but I think we don't need this new term in the ontology, because it is a special subclass of autoproducers.

[stap-m]

We have prosumer in the oeo:
A prosumer is an agent who is producer and consumer at the same time.

The def of organisation, as it is right now, refers to multiple persons, though: An organization is a structure with multiple people that has a collective goal.

[akleinau]

can an organisation be a structure with just one person?
That def is not aristotelean btw, we should fix that:
" An organization is a generically dependent continuant ..."

[akleinau]

Most definitions that I read an organisation had to be multiple people.
So do we implement the organisational energy producer now instead as a producer to include those small rooftop PV system owners?

[jannahastings]

An organisation can definitely consist of just one person, even though they _typically_ have more. For example, you can start a business by yourself :-). As per comment above, even small rooftop energy producers have to be registered and have a license, giving them organisational paperwork. So we should fix the definition of organisation.

[jannahastings]

OBI defines 'organisation' as follows:

_An entity that can bear roles, has members, and has a set of organization rules. Members of organizations are either organizations themselves or individual people. Members can bear specific organization member roles that are determined in the organization rules. The organization rules also determine how decisions are made on behalf of the organization by the organization members._

[akleinau]

ok we wanted to make Organisation a role (#301, 5. dev meeting).
I proposed in that issue: _"An organisation is a role depending on a society that has a collective goal."_
This could be extended, inspired by OBI, to:
_"An organisation is a role depending on a society that has a collective goal and a set of organization rules."_

[stap-m]

The extended def sounds good to me.

[Vera-IER]

sounds also good to me. I think there is a tiny misspelling: roal = role?

[akleinau]

sounds also good to me. I think there is a tiny misspelling: roal = role?

oh yes I fixed it

[akleinau]

@Vera-IER do you want to implement or shall I do it?

[Vera-IER]

Can you do it and I try to learn from you by following the review process?