Energy Modeling For Policymaking

The IEA held a series of three seminars between May 1996 and October 1997 on the insights from modelling relevant to energy and climate change. The seminars brought together key analysts, government and business experts, and policy makers from IEA member countries directly involved with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The participants' contributions and insights deserve strong acknowledgement. Modelling offers an indispensable analytical tool to evaluate how energy systems could best respond to restrictions on carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gas emissions, and to identify the most cost-effective and resilient policy instruments to reach these goals. It can provide key perceptions for analysis of comprehensive packages of economic and non-economic policy instruments within a consistent framework. This book maps the main approaches of energy modelling, their assumptions and their logic, to help policy makers and non-modellers understand and use its contributions. The text draws on papers prepared for the seminars by the IEA Secretariat, presentations given by participants and some general insights which emerged on economic modelling of climate change. In line with the main objective of the seminars, it avoids 'peer review' of different climate change models or specific policy suggestions, attempting instead to bridge the gap between modelling and policy making.

This timely Handbook draws together insightful analyses of natural resource management challenges and solutions in the face of sustainable development targets and a changing global climate.

This book presents the energy system roadmaps necessary to limit global temperature increase to below 2°C, in order to avoid the catastrophic impacts of climate change. It provides a unique perspective on and critical understanding of the feasibility of a well-below-2°C world by exploring energy system pathways, technology innovations, behaviour change and the macro-economic impacts of achieving carbon neutrality by mid-century. The transformative changes in the energy transition are explored using energy systems models and scenario analyses that are applied to various cities, countries and at a global scale to offer scientific evidence to underpin complex policy decisions relating to climate change mitigation and interrelated issues like energy security and the energy–water nexus. It includes several chapters directly related to the Nationally Determined Contributions proposed in the context of the recent Paris Agreement on Climate Change. In summary, the book collates a range of concrete analyses at different scales from around the globe, revisiting the roles of countries, cities and local communities in pathways to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make a well-below-2°C world a reality. A valuable source of information for energy modellers in both the industry and public sectors, it provides a critical understanding of both the feasibility of roadmaps to achieve a well-below-2°C world, and the diversity and wide applications of energy systems models. Encompassing behaviour changes; technology innovations; macro-economic impacts; and other environmental challenges, such as water, it is also of interest to energy economists and engineers, as well as economic modellers working in the field of climate change mitigation.

Texas National Energy Modeling Project: An Experience in Large-Scale Model Transfer and Evaluation reports on the Texas National Energy Model Project (TNEMP) experience. The TNEP was tasked with providing an independent evaluation of the Energy Information Administration's (EIA) Midterm Energy Forecasting System. It also provided recommendations to the Texas Energy Advisory Council concerning the maintenance of a national modeling system by the Council to evaluate Texas impacts within a consistent national modeling framework. The book provides all of the summary material documenting the entire experience, sequentially, from beginning to end. It first lays out the purposes of TNEMP, the organizational structure for the study, and an explanation of the evaluation criteria used to guide the model critiques. It summarizes in some detail the important findings of each of the 11 studies contained in Part II published under a separate cover. It presents the National Advisory Board’s assessment of the integrity of the evaluation project, their views of important outcomes of the TNEMP experience, and important recommendations to TNEMP and EIA. The final chapters contain an overview reply by EIA and a summary of a workshop held at the end of the project to discuss substantive issues raised by TNEMP.