Welcome to SEI’s U.S. Center

The Stockholm Environment Institute is an international not-for-profit research organization that has been engaged in environment and development issues at local, national, regional and global policy levels for more than 20 years.

Our goal is to bring about change for sustainable development by bridging science and policy. We do this by conducting integrated analysis that supports decision-makers.

SEI's work is interdisciplinary in nature, drawing upon engineering, economics, ecology, ethics, operations research, international relations and software design.

We work all around the world building capacity for integrated sustainability planning through training and collaboration on projects.

SEI's U.S. Center is a research affiliate of Tufts University in Massachusetts and also has offices in Davis, California, and Seattle, Washington.

Energy and climate mitigation planning

New version of LEAP available + 2 regional workshops

A new version of SEI's Long-range Energy Alternatives Planning system (LEAP) is now available, with features improvements to LEAP's optimization calculations including support for modeling a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) and support for more realistically modeling the different sizes (capacities) of different types of power plants by using Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP). The update also allows LEAP to be used simultaneously by multiple user accounts on a single PC.

The new RPS feature allows users to set targets for renewable generation as part of their optimization calculations. At the module level you can specify a Renewable Production Target variable as a percentage of total production from the module. At the process level you can specify for each process, what fraction of production is qualified for the RPS target using the Renewable Qualified variable.

For example, coal and oil would typically have a value of 0%, while wind and solar would have a value of 100%. Some RPS policies don't allow hydropower and biomass to be included. A coal plant fired with 10% biomass might have the Renewable Qualified variable set to 10%.

Users can also now set the minimum size of each capacity addition using the Minimum Addition Size variable. For example, wind power plants may have a minimum size of just a few megawatts, while a nuclear power plant may have a minimum size of a many hundreds of megawatts. If the variable is set to zero, there is no minimum and the optimization calculations will use a faster linear programming approach. If non-zero, the optimization calculations use the much slower technique of Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP). Note that this is still an experimental feature.

LEAP Workshop, June 10-21 at Fundación Bariloche, Argentina

The Institute for Energy Economics of the Fundación Bariloche (IDEE/FB)is hosting the 12th Annual Workshop on Energy Policy for Sustainable Development and Use of the LEAP Modeling System. The workshop is designed for energy and environmental professionals and is open to participants from any country, but please be advised that sessions will be conducted in Spanish, so a high degree of fluency in Spanish is required. A limited number of scholarships are available to help defray the costs of attending.

For more information or an application, visit the COMMEND website.

Regional Training on Using LEAP for GHG Mitigation Assessment in New Delhi, July 15-19

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Low Emissions Asian Development (LEAD) program will host a one-week regional training in New Delhi, India, on using LEAP to analyze low emission development strategies (LEDS). The training will also show how to construct marginal abatement cost (MAC) curves. The workshop is open to up to 40 LEDS practitioners from 10 LEAD partner countries: Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Nepal, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. Participants will be selected based on their qualifications and how actively they are engaged in LEDS. The LEAD program will arrange for the travel and accommodation of the selected participants.

For more information or an application, download the event flyer.

News

SEI paper on Chinook salmon wins ASCE-EWRI research award

March 27, 2013
Escobar, M. , Purkey, D. , Yates, D.
The editors of the ASCE-EWRI Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management have chosen an article by SEI researchers and colleagues at the University of California–Davis, "Water Management Adaptations to Prevent Loss of Spring-Run Chinook Salmon in California under Climate Change", as 2013 Best Research-Oriented Paper. The authors will be presented with the award during the World Environmental & Water Resources Congress 2013, May 19-23, in Cincinnati, Ohio.
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New version of WEAP (3.4) adds several enhancements, full Spanish translation

March 22, 2013
Sieber, J.
The latest version of WEAP, 3.4, is now available for download, with new features including a 3-D chart to show MODFLOW groundwater flow field vectors; enhanced display of background maps; a complete Spanish translation and partial translations into several other languages; and numerous other improvements, optimizations and bug fixes. Users of the previous WEAP version should be able to easily update, with an automatic installation.
External link

Conference explores links between inequality, sustainability

November 1, 2012
Kemp-Benedict, E. , Fencl, A. , Olson, K. , Davis, M.
Debates over equity – the fair distribution of resources, costs, and benefits – and a closely related topic, economic inequality, have arisen in the wake of the recent financial crisis. If we are to build a prosperous society, does inequality do more to help or hinder the pursuit of that goal? As we simultaneously seek an equitable and just society, then what level of inequality is consistent with an equitable outcome? As part of a major international project, SEI hosted hosting a conference at Tufts University on Nov. 9-10 to address these questions.
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WEAP, LEAP linkage create powerful integrated tool to explore the water-energy nexus

August 30, 2012
Heaps, C. , Sieber, J. , Purkey, D.
New releases of SEI's LEAP (Long-range Energy Alternatives Planning) system and SEI's Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) system, both used by thousands of planners and researchers worldwide, link the two tools to offer powerful new integrated modeling. Water-energy trade-offs are rapidly gaining attention around the world, and the linkage between LEAP and WEAP allows for more sophisticated, integrated analyses of these issues.
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