Staff:
Purkey, D.
;
Joyce, B.
;
Sieber, J.
;
Heaps, C.
;
National Center for Atmospheric Research; Pacific Gas and Electric Company; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Date: 2010-ongoing
Client/Funder: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA); California Energy Commission (CEC)
Research Area(s):
Water Resources
;
Energy Modeling
Description: This project continues to link SEI's Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) and Long-range Energy Alternatives Planning (LEAP) systems to build an integrated platform to explore water and energy interactions and feedbacks. In California, it is estimated that nearly 20% of all energy is associated with moving, lifting, treating, and using water. For this project, SEI has partnered with the state Department of Water Resources, which is responsible for guiding California's water future; the California Energy Commission, the coordinating agency to address climate change and reduce greenhouse emissions; and the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E),which provides natural gas and electric service to millions in northern and central California. We will link water management options, such as reuse, reservoir re-operation, demand-side management, land use changes, etc., as represented in the WEAP portion of the tool, to models of the electric utility serving the water utilities, as represented in LEAP. In addition to a new decision support tool, the results of this case study will be used to develop a final report on the Northern California's water future and its implications for energy demands.
External Link
Staff:
Heaps, C.
;
Clark, V.
;
Kollmuss, A.
;
Fundacion Bariloche; United Nations Development Programme; various governments
Date: 2002-ongoing
Client/Funder: Governments of the Netherlands and Sweden
Research Area(s):
Energy Modeling
Description: COMMEND (COMMunity for ENergy environment & Development) is an international initiative managed by SEI and designed to foster a community among energy analysts working on energy for sustainable development. A premise of COMMEND is that institutional and human capacity for energy and environmental analysis is in short supply, and that Southern analysts are isolated from their colleagues in other institutions and from sources of institutional support in both the North and South. COMMEND is primarily a web-based initiative to provide technical support, but also encompasses workshops held around the world to train energy and environment professionals in the techniques needed for energy planning and greenhouse gas mitigation assessment,
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particularly through the use of SEI's LEAP modeling software. Activities in 2010 included the dissemination of new "starter" LEAP data sets for 104 countries via the COMMEND website and the organization of numerous trainings including workshops in Argentina, the Bahamas, Benin, Cuba, Estonia, Indonesia, South Korea, Mexico, Mozambique and Paraguay. 2010 also saw the expansion of the program, with Tory Clark joining Charlie Heaps on the COMMEND team as a trainer and LEAP expert.
External Link
Staff:
Heaps, C.
;
Sieber, J.
;
Clark, V.
;
U.K. Energy Research Centre (UK ERC); International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); Energy Research Center at the University of Cape Town (ERC, UCT)
Date: 2001-ongoing
Research Area(s):
Energy Modeling
;
Sustainable Futures
Description: LEAP, the Long range Energy Alternatives Planning System, is SEI’s widely used software tool for energy policy analysis and climate change mitigation assessment. LEAP has been adopted by hundreds of organizations in more than 190 countries. Its users include government agencies, academics, non-governmental organizations, consulting companies, and energy utilities. It has been used at many different scales ranging from cities and states to national, regional and global applications. This year has seen major efforts to develop a new version of LEAP, and to make the techniques built into LEAP available to a wider audience. The new version will include new least-cost energy planning capabilities (developed in partnership with the IAEA, the U.K. ERC and others), new techniques for modeling of seasonal and time-of-day variations in demand and supply (see graphic below), a revamped file format that will support use of the system by large teams of users, and a new web-based tool that will allow results to be uploaded to a web site for interactive viewing. The new version of LEAP (LEAP2011) was released in May 2011; the new web-based tool will be following shortly.
External Link
Related Publication(s):
Energy Planning and Policy Analysis - LEAP
Staff:
Heaps, C.
;
Clark, V.
Date: 2010-2011
Research Area(s):
Energy Modeling
Description: The Massachusetts Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA) requires the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to achieve GHG reductions of 80% by 2050. The state asked SEI to develop a new energy and climate mitigation model to examine what policies can best meet these targets. SEI used the LEAP model to create baseline emissions projections to 2020 and 2050 and also analyzed more than 50 different policies and measures that could be implemented to achieve these goals. These measures include major energy efficiency and technical measures such as the electrification of transport and deep energy efficiency retrofits of buildings as well as dramatic shifts in how the state might generate carbon-free electricity. The model results informed the Massachusetts Clean Energy and Climate Plan for 2020.
More information
Staff:
Heaps, C.
;
Sieber, J.
;
Purkey, D.
;
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Date: 2010
Client/Funder: California Energy Commission
Research Area(s):
Water Resources
;
Energy Modeling
Description: Water and energy policy are increasingly connected and face interrelated challenges: 1) providing adequate water supplies for growing energy demands; 2) meeting the fast growing energy needs of our water supply systems, and 3) managing the competing demands on our water systems. These challenges are emerging at a time when there are increasing concerns over how climate change will affect the future reliability of freshwater supplies and how current energy policy influences climate change. This project links SEI's water and energy planning models, WEAP and LEAP, to provide new insights into the cross-cutting challenges of integrated water and energy planning. The combined water-energy model is applied to a case study in the American River Watershed in California.
